


It Sucks to be You

by memorizingthedigitsofpi



Series: Body swap 'verse [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU everything after the s2 finale, Awkwardness, Bodyswap, Bullshit Science, Comedy, F/M, FitzSimmonsing, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Some angst, UST, but there's some hanky panky in here, everyone gets a happy ending, fitzsimmons actually TALKING THINGS OUT for a change, no Maveth, no Will, not really SMUT smut, with the kissing and the whatnot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2018-05-19 12:01:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 48
Words: 48,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5966689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memorizingthedigitsofpi/pseuds/memorizingthedigitsofpi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the end of season 2 and FitzSimmons are investigating the monolith (and planning their first date). Suddenly, the door to the case opens up and the monolith liquifies, encasing both of them. When they're released, they aren't on Maveth... they're in the wrong body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jemma as Jemma

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notapepper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notapepper/gifts), [Madalayna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madalayna/gifts), [badscienceshenanigans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/badscienceshenanigans/gifts), [atomicsupervillainess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/atomicsupervillainess/gifts), [notthestupidcatagain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notthestupidcatagain/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are going to get confusing, guys, so I'm going to keep each chapter one character's perspective. At least for now. If I find it convenient later, I'll change things :P 
> 
> This chapter is from Jemma's point of view, and she is in her own body.

Jemma took a deep breath and sighed. It wasn't Mack's fault that he was in charge of keeping the monolith secure. She understood that, of course, but she was having a difficult time just now not being irked by it. She had _research_ to do, and all of these safety precautions he had in place were slowing her down. And frustrating her to no end.

She winced slightly as her abdomen twinged but tried to focus on the monitor in front of her. Time enough for that later. There was work to be done.

The door at the side of the room swung open with a creak and soft footsteps padded over to her. Pressing her lips together in a thin line, she tried to indicate with her face and her body language that she didn't want to be disturbed just now, but whoever it was was ignoring her signals and coming closer to her anyway. She stared even harder at her equipment in the hopes of discouraging the interloper.

Her face softened slightly when she recognized the soft cough. _Fitz_.

"How erm-" he started, swinging his arms awkwardly and not looking at her. "How're you, ehm... Y'know? Getting on?"

She swallowed the flutter of hope that crept into her gut every time they had a conversation and tried to concentrate on her work. "I'd be doing a lot better if I were allowed to take _samples_ instead of having to rely on sensor data," she grumbled, frowning at her keyboard.

"Yeah," Fitz nodded, head bobbing up and down more than necessary. "That's, ehm," he swallowed, swinging his hands together in a clap before swinging them apart again. He licked his lips and took a breath. "So, um, there's..." He cleared his throat. "I  mean, for food, we... That is, _you_... and me?"

"Not that I don't think your sensors are good enough, of course," Jemma continued, not really hearing him. "It's just that they can't give me all of the information I need to know, is all." She sighed again and shook her head. "Do you think _you_ could talk to Mack? Get him to ease the restrictions, just a bit?" She squinted at the monolith, as if by _looking_ at it with a penetrating enough stare she could reveal its secrets.

"Sure," Fitz nodded. "Of course," he agreed absently, still nodding. He slid his hands up inside his cardigan sleeves until just the tips of his fingers poked out. "But about the other thing..." He brought his arms up to his chest, almost covering his face with his hands. "I was hoping we could... you know?"

"No!" Jemma replied, her frustration clear in her voice. "I don't!" She was under orders to get this monolith figured out _yesterday_ , and with the total _lack_ of cooperation she was getting from anyone at all, it was a wonder she'd been as polite as she had been. She winced again as the pain in her gut increased. Stupid bloody cramps.

"You keep rambling on and on, and I still don't know what you mean," she said, still staring at the monolith. If he wasn't here to help her, she'd really rather Fitz go back to the lab. At least that way, he wouldn't be distracting her. Or making her anxious.

She understood now why he'd waited until the last possible moment before he'd said anything to her about his feelings. This dreadful uncertainty about what he might be thinking after her admission was driving her mad. If he didn't feel the same as he had last year, she wished he'd just _tell_ her already. 

"Dinner." Fitz said, and from his tone he'd probably been trying to get that word out all along.

Now Jemma was feeling _guilt_ on top of her nerves, anxiety, and frustration. Add in the increasing discomfort of her uterus, and she was anything but her usual polite self.

"Fast approaching, yes," she said impatiently. She needed him to leave before other, more maudlin, emotions surfaced. "And we'll eat it, I'm sure!" She'd apologize to him later, but right now she was doing her damnedest to make him turn tail and run.

"Yeah," Fitz nodded and the started shaking his head. "No, no, no, but-" he looked down at his shoes and put one hand on his hip. The other he kept raised, almost like a cue for his speech. "Uh," he took a breath, gathering his thoughts. Then he pointed from himself to her. "Me _and_ you," he said, looking at her and stepping a bit closer.

Jemma blinked and looked at him, frowning in thought.

"Maybe we could eat," he continued. "Somewhere else."

She squinted at him as he leaned one hand against the monolith case. Where else would they eat? Unless he meant somewhere other than this _room_ , in which case-

"Y'know..."

He was still looking at her, and there was an electric buzzing in her chest that was growing with each half-step closer he took. She tried to breathe normally and focused on the equipment in front of her rather than on him because every time she looked at him, she wondered-

"Somewhere..."

She wished he'd hurry up and say his piece because if he stayed in here much longer, she feared she might just cry. He was being so _nice_ about the whole thing, nicer than she had been she had to admit, but it was fairly obvious that he'd gotten over her now and only wanted to be friends.

She'd only _just_ realized how she felt for him, and already it was too late.

"... Nice."

Jemma stopped what she was doing as that last word sunk in. Nice? As in... _nice_?

She finally allowed herself to look at him again, her eyes rising a bit hesitantly to his face. He looked as hopeful as she felt at the start of every conversation they had these days.

Was it possible?

Her mouth dropped open slightly in surprise. Was Fitz...? She looked down, realizing how horrid she'd been to him and how she hadn't made this easy on him at all. There he was, getting up the nerve to... to... She swallowed hard. And there she was, trying to shoo him out of the room.

She looked back up at him, mouth opening and no sound coming out. Her mind was awash in a panic of wanting desperately to say the right thing and not knowing what that thing might be. Her heart was beating faster in her chest and there was a rushing sound in her ears and she seemed to have forgotten to breathe all of a sudden. She needed to say... to tell him... to _tell him..._

"Oh," she managed, nodding shakily. That wasn't at all what she wanted to have come out of her mouth, but it was all that she could push out past her lips.

Her mouth quirked in a nervous half smile and she fidgeted slightly, hoping against hope that enough of their "psychic bond" remained for him to understand everything she didn't know how to say.

Fitz smiled back at her, and she knew that he did.

Then his hand shifted on the monolith case and the moment was broken.

"Good," he said, inspecting the case rather than looking at her. "Okay," he said, turning with a nod.

Jemma pressed her lips together again, but this time rather than expressing her frustration it was to stop the mad grin from taking over her face. Dinner. With Fitz. Someplace nice. The electric buzzing that erupted in her chest any time Fitz was nearby had expanded outward to all of her limbs, and she was wondering if she might not start to fly if she weren't careful.

"Uh, well..." Fitz continued, and he was so adorably distracted that it was all she could do to keep from laughing. The relief that washed over her as soon as she understood what was happening was making her a bit punch drunk.

"Y-uhh... You should come find me when you're finished here, and, and I'll- I'll start working on options to run by you," Fitz clapped his hands together in front of himself again, "For that." She suddenly realized that she wasn't alone in her feelings of awkwardness and anxiety. He must have been feeling this way all year.

How had he managed to cope?

Placing his hands on his hips, he turned to leave the room.

He was almost to the door when she finally found her voice.

"Fitz!" she called after him.

He about-faced so quickly he almost lost his balance. "Yeah?" he asked over the squeak of his trainers. He was looking at her like he wasn't sure if she was about to kiss him or call the whole thing off.

Jemma's mouth twitched into a semi-smile again, and she looked down at her equipment one more time. She didn't want him to leave, but how to get him to stay?

"You could-" she swallowed quickly and took a breath before looking up at him again. Smiling a bit more naturally, she tried to get her voice to behave itself. "You could call up that Italian place that Bobbi was telling us about the other day?"

... Telling us about how romantic it was.

Jemma closed her eyes and pressed her lips into a thin line again. Presumptuous. What if he just meant as frie-

"Good uh, good idea," Fitz nodded, looking down at his shoes with his hands still on his hips. "I'll ehm," he looked up and fished in his back pocket for his phone. "I'll give them a call, shall I?" He was wandering closer again.

Jemma nodded and felt her face flush. "Mmhmm," she agreed. As a biologist, she knew that her heart hadn't just skipped a beat and yet that's certainly what it felt like.

"Seven o'clock, d'you think?" Fitz asked as he googled the number.

"Eight," Simmons squeaked. She clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with embarrassment. She was so nervous her voice had actually _cracked_.

Fitz looked up from his phone in surprise and stared at her for a moment. A smile just started to form at the corners of his mouth, and then he quickly looked down at his phone again. "Right," he nodded. "Eight."

He had just hit the green phone to dial when the monolith case suddenly sprang open.

Jemma opened her mouth to scream but the sound was immediately drowned out by liquid rock.

She was overwhelmed by a strange floating feeling and then a sharp tug in her gut. Her mind seemed to swirl like water emptying out of a basin, and she wondered if she might vomit. Then, as quickly as it had covered her, the molten monolith drew itself back into its case and stood as a solid pillar again.

Jemma slammed her hand against the case door and shouted, "Quick, Fitz! Lock it!"

But her voice was deeper than it should have been.

And her hand was larger.

And her sweater a different colour.

And she was standing on the wrong side of the case.

With a feeling of horror creeping over her, Jemma tore her gaze away from the monolith's case and looked over to her left.

She saw herself staring back at her.


	2. Fitz as Jemma

Fitz sat awkwardly on a chair on the other side of the room from the monolith.

After a crowded few moments of fiddling with locks, they'd managed to get the thing contained to Mack's stringent guidelines. Now they were catching their breath... and catching up to their circumstance.

He tried once more to cross his arms over his chest but was stymied again by the protuberances there that he'd never had to navigate before. He _knew_ Jemma crossed her arms. He'd seen her do it! He just hadn't quite figured out _how_ yet. Was he supposed to cross _over_ them? _Under_? One arm over and the other under?

He was just opening his mouth to ask the expert when Jemma spoke.

Well, she tried to.

He still wasn't able to look at her, but he knew from experience what her face would be doing.

His face?

God, pronouns were going to be a _nightmare_ until they got this all sorted out.

 _The face that Jemma was wearing_ would currently have furrowed brows and a trembling lip. He wouldn't be at all surprised if the eyes were a bit wet.

There was an ache in his gut as he thought about Jemma having to be confronted with the reality of his damaged brain. _He'd_ had months and months of practice at coming around to the right words from a different direction. _He_ knew how to use an approximation to get the idea across, even if he couldn't use the word that just wouldn't come to him. In fact, sitting here with a perfectly healthy, fully-functioning brain again was a strange sensation. He could say anything at all that he wanted, and he didn't know what to say at all.

Wasn't that just the way?

"Don't try to be perfect," Fitz said quietly. He was still getting used to his words coming out in Jemma's voice. Especially since it was also coming out in  _his_ accent. "Just get the idea out, and we can nail down the language afterward."

"I know, I know, it's just..." Jemma shook her head and sighed.

Hearing his mouth form a Sheffield accent was even worse than hearing his voice outside of his own head. Did he really sound like that?

Shaking her head as if she could shake off her frustration, Jemma pushed her shoulders back and started again. "We can use the..." she hesitated, her right hand making a grabbing motion as if she could pluck the needed words out of the air. "The..." Both of her hands formed impotent fists which she squeezed until her knuckles turned white.

"Breathe," Fitz said, finally looking at her.

Seeing himself the way other people saw him was as jarring as the rest. He was used to the face he saw in the mirror. Seeing it all flipped around like this was just disturbing enough to make him feel like he was in some strange sort of alternate reality dream.

He watched as Jemma took a deep, steadying breath and closed her eyes. The lips that had so recently been his own pressed together into a thin line, and suddenly Fitz was seeing Jemma's expression mapped onto his features. He turned his face half away and squinted in response.

"This is so _weird_ ," he said.

Jemma nodded glumly. "You can say that again," she agreed vehemently.

Fitz smiled encouragingly. "See?" he said happily. "You're getting the hang of it already."

Jemma pinned him with a glare, and that felt a lot more like his own face. He supposed she owed him that, since he'd looked at her the same way when she'd cheerleaded him in the early days of his recovery.

He really did owe her dinner, if for no other reason than to make up for that disastrous one they'd had last summer.

Jemma started to walk back over to the monolith case, but Fitz stood up from his seat and pulled back on her arm before she got too close. "Whoa there," he said. "Not too close!"

She rolled her eyes, and he balked again at seeing _her_ mannerisms superimposed on _his_ body.

"Are you w-w-worried it'll ha... ha..." Jemma screwed her eyes shut tight and balled her hands into fists again for a moment. Finally, her eyes snapped open and she spat out, "Go again?"

Fitz paused at that. If it _did_ happen again, would they end up back in their own bodies? Or would something even stranger happen? When you were dealing with a rock that suddenly turned into a liquid, you couldn't just make assumptions.

"I mean-" he started.

"You two still at it?" Mack asked, pushing the half-opened door wide and entering the room. "You need to learn how to take a break."

Fitz looked at Jemma and she looked back at him. Mack had imposed some very strict guidelines surrounding any and all interactions with the monolith and they'd ignored at least two of them before getting into their predicament.

"We're just-" Fitz stopped himself short and cleared his throat before continuing. Right. English. He could sound English. Right? "Ehm, just finishing up?" he tried.

Jemma stared at him with wide eyes and a thrust forward jaw.

Apparently, he _couldn't_ sound English.

"You alright, Simmons?" Mack asked with a frown.

"He-" Jemma cleared her throat and turned to face Mack. Resting one hand on Fitz's forearm, she smiled tightly. " _She_ 's just tired."

Jemma wasn't much better at sounding Scottish.

Mack looked from one of them to the other, sizing them up with a wrinkled forehead. He leaned his head back slowly and squinted at them before shrugging and relaxing his face. "You both work too hard." Then he pierced Jemma-as-Fitz with a significant look. "You should get some _dinner_ ," he said with heavy significance.

Jemma's eyes widened as she realized that Mack knew what was going on between them. "Mmhmm," she nodded, shooing him not-so-subtly with one hand.

Fitz pretended not to know what was happening when all that he really wanted to do was clap one hand over his eyes and groan until he ran out of breath.

Mack thrust his chin in the direction of the monolith case. "That thing locked up tight?" he asked with a smile. "Don't want it getting loose or anything."

"No fear of that!" Fitz said brightly. He tried not to wince when Jemma stepped on his toe. She was a lot heavier now that she was him, and these boots weren't nearly as sturdy as they looked.

"Well, have a good night," Mack waved. He turned to go out the door, but before he did Fitz saw him give Jemma a gesture of encouragement.

Once they were alone again, Fitz looked at Jemma a bit sheepishly.

"You told M-Mack?" Jemma asked, surprised.

Fitz shrugged. "It was him or Hunter, and I wanted you to say _yes_ when I asked, so..."

Jemma smiled and nodded. "Good p-point." And she was staring at him with an expression he couldn't read because he'd never seen his own face make it before. He wondered what it meant.

"So," Fitz clapped his hands together, finally breaking the moment. "Sensor data or dinner?" He knew which one he'd rather, but he also knew which one Jemma would pick.

"Data," she said with a firm nod of her head. Then she bit her lip and brushed one hand behind her ear as if she were curling her hair over it. Of course, the hair she currently had was much shorter than her usual, so it didn't work.

Fitz had never realized just how silly he looked when he blushed.

"But maybe we co-could, um, an-ana-" Jemma stopped herself short before she got frustrated and paused to think before trying again. "Read it w-while we eat?"

Fitz grinned and went over to grab the laptop from its bench.

"Your place or mine?"


	3. Jemma as Fitz

Jemma frowned as she stared at her own face. She hadn't realized that her makeup looked that heavy.

She had started doing it that way when she was undercover because it hid the signs of poor sleep, poor eating, and just general poor self-care that she had gotten into the habit of. She'd continued it after her return to the base because, well, some habits are hard to break. Especially when... She blinked, swallowed, and took a deep breath. No need to go down _that_ road just now.

And anyway. Things between her and Fitz were getting better every day. She'd been getting 6 hours of sleep more often than not lately, and that was practically luxurious in comparison to the 2 or 3 she'd been getting in the winter.

She let out a chuckle as Fitz rubbed a finger over his (formerly _her_ ) lips as he thought his way through how the monolith case had managed to open. She wondered if he'd notice the fact that he was getting lipstick all over his face and index finger.

They were standing on either side of the island in the kitchen on the same floor as their lab. Usually, she would cross her arms in front of her and lean her elbows on the surface, but with the extra 4 inches of height she had in Fitz's body, it wasn't as comfortable anymore. Instead, she pressed her hands on the surface and tilted her hips to the side, raising one foot up to rest on its toes like she did when she was standing in a briefing.

She gave her own body a head to toe scan and shook her head slightly. Being inside of her body as she had been up to this point, she hadn't realized how short she looked in comparison to her surroundings.

She must look like a child next to Mack.

And Bobbi, for that matter.

"... seems to have unlatched itself from the inside, somehow," Fitz was saying with a frown and a shake of his head. "Though _how_ it did it, I still don't know." He sighed and looked up from the laptop screen. He did a quick double-take when he was confronted with his own face staring back at him and shuddered slightly. "I'll _never_ get used to that," he chuckled self-deprecatingly.

"I h-hope you w-won't, h-have to," Jemma smiled wanly back. She'd been fairly quiet through their dinner and discussion, not wanting to let Fitz see how his aphasia was affecting her. He'd proved himself more than capable of doing everything he'd done before, and she was worried that if she let him see how upset she was by it that he would end up thinking she pitied him or something.

"I mean," Fitz grinned back with a twinkle in his eye. "Don't get me wrong, I could probably get used to having," he pointed to the front of his sweater and waggled his eyebrows humourously, "Y'know."

Jemma rolled her eyes and swatted him playfully on the shoulder. "H-hands _off_ ," she said in no uncertain terms.

Fitz held his hands up and gave her an innocent look. "They're off! They're off!"

Jemma saved the file they were working on and closed the laptop. Looking down, she assumed an innocent expression of her own. "At-at-at l-least until after our..." She closed her eyes for a moment when the word didn't come. "Our..."

Fitz reached out and laid his hand over top of hers where it rested on the computer. She looked up at him, and he smiled as he squeezed her fingers with his own.

It was strange seeing a distinctly Fitz-ish softening of the eyes in the context of her face, and yet there it was. If he looked at her like that, she'd recognize him with any face on.

"Our _d-date_ ," she finally finished.

Fitz swung their joined hands off of the laptop and picked it up in his free hand. He kept holding her hand as he started walking out of the kitchen, and she felt herself smiling. It still felt strange to do it through someone else's face, but it felt wonderful to want to do it again after so long.

"Well," Fitz said as they held hands and walked through the corridors of the Playground. "We _did_ just have dinner together, so _technically_..."

"By _that_ l-lo-logic," Jemma joked. "We've been d-dating since..." she paused again. How in the world could she not remember the name of their school? They'd trained there for S.H.I.E.L.D.! It was where they'd _met_! It was a defining moment in her life, and she had no idea what it was called. "Since..." This was just impossible! "Since..."

Fitz squeezed her hand again and led her into the elevator, pressing the button to take them to their quarters.

Jemma closed her eyes tight for a moment and concentrated on breathing in and out. She could _do_ this. Let go of the word you can't think of and find another way to say it.

"F-for almost t-ten years," she concluded.

Fitz grinned when the elevator doors dinged open and pressed his forearm against them to keep them open. "I'd say it's about time I got to second base, then, wouldn't you?" he joked.

"Y-you've been sp-sp..." Jemma inhaled sharply through her nose. "Hanging out with H-Hunter too much!" She shook her head with a laugh. "He's r-rubbing off on you!"

Fitz stopped short outside of his quarters and stared straight ahead for a moment.

"What?" Jemma asked with a frown.

"Sorry," Fitz apologized while clearly biting the inside of his cheek. "Just trying not to make the obvious joke."

Jemma squinted at him for a moment as she thought back to what she'd said. After a second, her brows lifted and she rolled her eyes. "Oh, _Fitz_ ," she sighed. She couldn't quite stop herself from smiling slightly, however.

Fitz tried to open his door, but of course his key was in what was now Jemma's pocket. After a bit of fumbling, they got the door open and Fitz put the laptop down on his desk before collapsing onto his bed.

"Ugh," he moaned. "I don't think that dinner sat well with me."

They'd made a simple stir-fry dish with rice, and Fitz had put what seemed to her like half a bottle of Sriracha on his, as per his usual. She had declined, also as per usual, but when she'd tasted it, it had been incredibly bland. She'd just been, a bit surprisingly, reaching for the hot sauce when Fitz had nearly choked on his first bite and pushed his plate away.

New body, new taste buds, new rules.

They'd traded plates and been much better satisfied with their meals.

Of course, Fitz didn't know that it wasn't his dinner that was making him feel that way.

"Ah," Jemma said awkwardly, reaching up once more to push hair she didn't have behind her ears. "Right," she looked down at her shoes and then back up at him with a grimace. "That's... n-not the _food_ ," she said.

Fitz frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You've got your..." Oh god. Not _now_. Her eyes widened as she realized she didn't know the word for it, and her mouth worked up and down a few times as she tried to think of another way to say it. Blood? No, no that wouldn't do. Flow? He _might_ understand that? Oh god, it was another word for full stop. Why couldn't she remember it? "Decimal?" she tried.

"Decimal?" Fitz asked, his frown deepening. His eyes shifted left and right as he seemed to be going through a thesaurus in his head of what she might mean.

"Full s-stop," Jemma tried again, raising her eyebrows and looking at him hopefully.

"Full...?" Fitz's frown cleared as he realized what she meant. "You mean my period?" he asked.

"Yes!" Jemma nodded in relief.

He looked quite chuffed for a moment before the reality of what that meant struck him. "I've got my period?" he asked again, a bit weakly this time.

Jemma nodded sympathetically.

She was _not_ looking forward to explaining tampons.


	4. Bobbi

Bobbi swam to consciousness in her hospital bed and groaned out a soft sigh. Her eyes felt heavy and her mouth chalky and the greasiness of her hair was making her head itch.

She hated hospitals. She had ever since she was a kid.

Hunter thought it was the forced rest and the chemical smell, but it was the memories of her parents stressed out and whispering worriedly at her bedside when they thought she was asleep. She doubted even the Director knew she'd had childhood leukemia. She'd paid a lot of money to have her medical history professionally cleaned. SHIELD didn't want agents with pre-existing conditions.

Lying in bed like she was now, with tubes sticking out of her all over the place, made her skin crawl in a way that not even Ward had managed with his long-winded mid-torture monologues.

As soon as she was out of this bed, she was going to hunt that bastard down and shoot him.

That thought was her waking up point most days, and the adrenaline rush it gave her nearly cleared away the cobwebs of the morphine.

Nearly.

She was still in no condition to attempt an interrogation, not even the kind based on her being the "victim" that she'd learned through Black Widow's training.

Hell, the way she felt? She wasn't in a fit state to have a conversation about anything more than the weather. She couldn't hide a thing when she was drugged up like this, so the less she said, the better.

"Simmons?" she croaked at the figure standing above her. A clipboard was obstructing her view, but it was always Simmons. She had no idea when the woman got any sleep, let alone did any other work.

The corner of her mouth quirked up as she pictured Simmons with a halo and wings. _My guardian angel._

"Ehm," the clipboard moved to reveal quite a different face. "Uh, _F-Fitz_... actually." He smiled down at her, and there was something odd about his smile that she just couldn't place.

"Fitz?" she frowned. "Either I'm way groggier than I feel or that doesn't make much sense."

"Oh, um," he cleared his throat and looked over his shoulder. "I'm uh," his eyes shifted this way and that as he tried to think of what to say. "H-helping?" He raised his eyebrows and smiled again, and again it looked odd. Odd but strangely familiar?

Just then, Simmons came up to the other side of her bed and patted the back of her hand.

"Ouch," Bobbi winced as her IV needle jiggled in the back of her hand. "Careful there," she chuckled softly, then her laugh turned into a light cough. "I'm kind of a pincushion these days. You need to watch where you're going."

"Oh!" Simmons looked horrified and guilty, but there was something strange about _her_ too. "I'm _so sorry!_ " she apologized, immediately removing her hand and then awkwardly straightening the bedclothes under Bobbi's wrist.

Bobbi frowned up at her and blinked when the image separated into double vision. "How much morphine have you got me on, anyway?" she asked. "And why do you and Fitz sound like each other?"

Simmons sent a panicked look across Bobbi's bed at Fitz. Fitz returned the look with a quick shake of his head and then smiled reassuringly down at her. Reaching out, he brushed her hair back from her face. "D-don't w-worry about th-tha-that, Bobbi. It's just enough to keep you..." He paused and Bobbi frowned again. She hadn't heard Fitz have to search for words like this in a long time. These days it only happened when he was really stressed out.

"Comfortable," Simmons jumped in. "Just enough to keep you comfortable. Nothing for you to worry about." She pulled the clipboard out of Fitz's resisting hands and flipped through the chart much more quickly than usual. "Things are looking quite good," she said cheerfully. "You'll be on your feet again in no time!"

Bobbi raised a brow at that and looked significantly down at her knee. She had at least two more surgeries to go before she'd even be able to start rehab. "No time, huh?" she said dryly.

Simmons blushed and ran a hand up the back of her neck and buried it in her hair. There was something about that hangdog expression that tugged at Bobbi's memory, but the fog of the morphine was keeping her from making the connection.

Fitz grabbed the clipboard back from Simmons and gave her a bit of a glare before looking back down at Bobbi. "W-we should r-really let you r-rest," he said with a warm smile and a pat on her upper arm, well away from any needles or tubes. "I'm s-sure Hunter w-will be back here l-la-later on."

Bobbi heaved out a sigh and then nodded. "Yeah," she said shortly.

"Go easy on him, yeah?" Simmons said with a small frown. "The poor bloke almost lost the woman he loves."

Bobbi blinked in surprise at that outburst. She'd never known Simmons to speak that plainly about... well, about anything that wasn't science-related.

"I guess...?" she agreed. She couldn't help staring at her until Simmons started to blush and turned away.

"Right," Fitz said awkwardly, looking from Bobbi to Simmons and clearly wishing he'd missed that exchange. "We'll just... l-leave you t-to it, then?" he said. He gave her another of those bedside manner smiles and hung her chart expertly from the hook on the end of her bed. He didn't even have to look.

Bobbi furrowed her brow as FitzSimmons met at the end of the bed and started whispering as they left the room.

_"-told you to let **me** do the talk-"_

_"-n't exactly stay **mute** , now could-?"_

_"-a professional **spy**! She'll **notice** -"_

_"-opped up on morphine! It's **fine**!"_

By the time they rounded the corner, Bobbi was more confused than ever. What in the world was going on between those two?


	5. Jemma as Fitz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI: bathroom realness.

"What if it's lost in there, Jemma?" Fitz called through the door.

"It's not _l-lost_ , Fitz!" Jemma groaned back in frustration while rolling her eyes. She crunched up her nose when the hands she'd raised up to her neck were abraded by stubble.

Much as she liked how Fitz _looked_ these days, she wasn't entirely sure she liked how he _felt_.

"I can't find it!" he shouted after another moment.

"Oh for-!" Jemma rolled her eyes again and twisted the door handle to open it. "I'll do it!"

The door was pushed sharply closed again before she got it even two inches wide. "Jemma!" Fitz gasped, scandalized. "You can't just... _come in here_."

"In c-case you've f-for..." She took in a deep breath and ground her teeth for a moment. "C-can't recall, that's _m-my_ body you're p-pok-prodding around in!"

There was silence in the bathroom for a long moment and then the door creaked open slightly.

" _Th-thank_ you," Jemma said sarcastically as she pushed it wider and strode in.

Fitz had her jeans and underwear dropped down around his ankles and was hovering awkwardly over the toilet. He was clearly attempting to find the tampon string without either looking at what he was doing or feeling around for it. Two things which would have helped immensely.

Jemma tried to raise her right eyebrow at him but found that it wanted to stay put. It felt very strange indeed to raise her left one instead. At least crossing her arms over her chest wasn't difficult.

Fitz blushed as he looked at himself-but-not-really starting at himself-but-not-really in such a compromising position.

"You're sure you've put one in?" he asked sheepishly.

Jemma gave him such a flat stare his blush increased by at least two shades of red.

She was surprised to notice that the hue continued right down her throat to her upper chest.

She was even _more_ surprised to notice that looking at her chest was causing a reaction in her trouser front.

Taking a deep breath, she brought her mind to the task at hand and moved to stand right in front of Fitz. "Of _course_ I did," she sighed with a shake of her head. "It's n-not the k-kind of thing you _..."_ She forgot the word she was looking for but was too annoyed to search for it. Reaching between what were until recently her own legs, she quickly found what she was looking for and tugged.

"Wha-!" Fitz's eyes widened and his mouth opened in surprise. His hands flew up in front of him in a sort of judo-like stance at the suddenness of her movement.

Jemma wrapped the tampon in some toilet paper and dropped it into the little garbage can she kept by the toilet.

Fitz frowned down at it. "Of course," he muttered to himself.

"Hmm?" Jemma asked as she washed her hands at the sink.

"I always just use mine for snack wrappers," Fitz shrugged. He hadn't pulled her jeans back up yet.

Jemma chuckled as she dried her hands off. "Are you g-going to...?" She pointed to where half of Fitz's clothes were still on the floor and gestured in an upwards motion.

"Actually, ehm," Fitz ruffled the hair at the back of his head and looked down at the bathmat. "I, uh, kind of, y'know..." He raised his eyes up to look at her without lifting his face.

 "Ah," Jemma nodded. "Me as well, actually," she said cheerfully.

Fitz's eyes widened at that. "But then you'll-"

"Yes," Jemma nodded.

"And you'll _see_ my-"

"Yes."

"And, and, and... _touch_...?"

"Yes?"

Fitz gulped and looked a bit sick.

"I promise I won't m-ma-ma...." Jemma screwed her eyes up in concentration as she tried to form the word. How in the world did Fitz do this every day? She'd had a few hours of this and already she was so frustrated she felt she was going mad. "Wank," she finally finished with an apologetic look.

Fitz had to laugh at that. Then he had to sit down rather quickly because the laughter had rather jump-started things.

"Oh god," he moaned as he covered his face with his hands. And then he moaned it again, a bit louder, "Ohhhh god." His head lifted up from his hands as he continued to pee, and he stared at Jemma in shock as he panted out a few breaths and reached out to the bathroom counter for support. "Oh my _god_ ," he gasped, his chest rising and falling sharply.

Jemma felt her own breath come a bit faster as her face flushed. Fitz must have been holding that in for quite some time if it felt _that_ good.

"Jemma?" he asked weakly as he finally stopped peeing and was able to catch his breath.

"Yes?" she asked innocently, pretending she had no idea what had just happened. Except she knew _exactly_ what had just happened. And the idea of Fitz having a mini-orgasm in front of her was making her trouser issue a bit more pressing.

So to speak.

"Did I just...?" Fitz asked, staring at her in awe.

"Yes," she nodded briefly. If she'd had the words, she could have explained about how the full bladder rests against the gspot in some women, or how holding urine stimulates blood flow, both of which could lead to orgasm. But since she didn't have the wherewithal (or the energy) to attempt an explanation, she just turned away from him and bent to open a bathroom cabinet. "You should p-probably use th-these," she advised him, placing a box of sanitary napkins on the counter.

Fitz looked at her face for a moment, a question written all over his. After a moment, he seemed to change his mind about asking it however, and he reached into the box to take out a pad. "Period training wheels?" he asked.

Jemma grinned at him. "S-something like that," she agreed. It wasn't like she never used them herself, after all. They were just a lot easier for Fitz to manage than tampons.

"Well," Fitz said with forced cheerfulness as he stuck the pad onto his panties. "I'm just glad I don't have to put anything inside me," he shuddered. "Why you voluntarily push something up in there..." he trailed off and shuddered again. "If _I_ were a girl, I'd never want _anything_ in there!"

Jemma laughed wryly. "I'll r-remind you of that w-when we have s-sex." She pulled some toilet paper off of the roll and wadded it up for him. "And, f-for right n-now, you _are_ a girl," she reminded him.

Fitz took the paper from her but didn't use it immediately. " _When_ we have sex?" he asked.

Jemma opened her mouth to reply but didn't really know what to say. Instead, she shrugged and smiled awkwardly.


	6. Fitz as Jemma

Fitz grumbled as he stood on a chair to mount the last camera. It wasn't like he was trying to put them on the ceiling or anything! Just high enough up on the wall to get a clear shot of the monolith, the door, and the floor in between.

He'd managed the first one by jumping up and slapping it in place on the wall, but he'd found jumping to be a painful activity. Who knew boobs could hurt like that? And they were already aching something awful because of this period business, so the added jostling was just insult to injury.

Meanwhile, Jemma was just stood over there watching the whole thing and staring. If he didn't know better, he'd swear she was checking him out.

"Job done,'' Fitz said as he stepped down from the chair seat and wiped his hands off on each other.

He had to admit that the smaller fingers had been a bit of a boon. They were thinner than his, but longer somehow? Even though her hands seemed smaller? How did girls' bodies even make sense at all.

"Pass me the laptop?" he asked as he walked over to Jemma.

She turned to the table behind her and went to grab the computer with her left hand before suddenly changing her mind and taking it with her right. When she passed it over to him, their eyes met and Fitz smiled understandingly.

"S'why I keep it in my pocket, mostly," he said quietly as he sat down and balanced the computer on his lap.

Jemma stared at him for a moment, but he ignored it and concentrated on the screen in front of him. He heard the rustle of cloth as her left hand slipped into her pocket, but she didn't say anything. Then he felt her right hand on his shoulder giving it a squeeze.

He smiled without looking up and reached across his body to cover her hand with his own.

Data started streaming in from the infrared detectors and he needed both of his hands on the keyboard, but Jemma left hers on his shoulder and it felt good.

"If it happens again, hopefully this will give us the information we need to understand _why_ ," he said, squinting at the monitor as he typed rapidly.

"And h-how to m-make it do it _again_ ," Jemma added vehemently.

"Right," Fitz nodded. He finished up one last line of code and grinned up at her. "Alright," he said. "Engineering bit's all done for now. Time for you to figure out the biochem."

Jemma grinned back and held the laptop for him as he stood up. "Th-that'll have to w-wait for m-mor... tomorrow," she said.

Fitz grabbed her hand as they started to leave the room. He'd really liked holding her hand earlier, and she didn't seem to mind him doing it at all, so he was considering making a habit of it.

Jemma looked at him as his small hand slid into her larger one, and she pressed her lips together in that way she had when she was trying not to say something. It wasn't nearly as endearing across her current face as it was on her usual one.

"Sorry," he apologized, letting go of her. But she grabbed onto him before he'd even fully released her, and their fingers intertwined.

"Don't be," she said clearly, a smile slowly spreading across her face.

Fitz smiled back as they continued to their rooms.

They stopped outside Jemma's quarters and he reluctantly dropped her hand before taking the laptop from her.

"Well," he said with an awkward wave. "G'night?"

"W-where are you g-going?" Jemma asked, reaching one hand out to his forearm and pulling him back as he turned away.

Fitz's eyebrows rose in surprise. "My room?" he asked.

He watched her try to raise one eyebrow awkwardly before giving up and raising the other. It'd be funny if it weren't still so strange to see his own face making expressions that he never made.

"This _is_ y-your room," Jemma said, gesturing to his body. "If you go to your a-actual r-room, people will _talk_ ," she pointed out.

Fitz slouched in exhaustion and groaned. "But I _hate_ your bed!" he complained. "Your mattress is so bloody soft, I always have nightmares about drowning in candyfloss."

Jemma glared at him with her arms crossed over her chest. That reminded him that he wanted to ask her how to manage that feat while encumbered by boobs, but he decided that now might not be the best time.

"At l-least _my_ bed has enough c-clear surface area to _sleep_ on," she shot back.

"I've cleaned mine off!" Fitz protested, sounding a bit hurt. "You've not even _seen_ it in mo-" He cut himself off before he finished the word, but he'd said enough. He watched Jemma blink rapidly as her eyes started shining a brighter blue due to unshed tears.

"R-r-right," she nodded with a stiff smile and a half step back. "S-s-sorry," she shook her head and looked down at her feet. "I-I-I d-didn't m-mean t-t-to-"

Fitz watched her stutter get worse as she got upset and immediately wanted to kick himself. He hadn't _thought_ before he spoke, and now...

Deciding that thinking too much _now_ would just make it all even worse, he gave in to the urge that overtook him, and he took a quick step into her personal space and wrapped his arms around her.

" _I'm_ sorry," he apologized. "That was a _stupid_ thing to say."

She froze in his arms the second he hugged her, but he didn't let go. He could hear the soft sniffle next to his ear that belied her trying not to cry. "And I'm sorry about the other stuff, too," he whispered quietly.

Jemma melted at that, wrapping her arms around him and resting her cheek on top of his head. "M-m-me t-t-too," she admitted with a soft sob. "I-I-I n-never sh-sh-should h-have-"

"Shh," Fitz soothed her, rubbing a hand up and down her back. "I know why you did," he reassured her.

"B-b-but-"

"And you were _right_ ," he said, leaning back a bit and looking up to meet her eyes.

Jemma pressed her lips together and blinked rapidly, her breaths coming in quick gulps.

"And we can talk more about it, _after_ we get this mess sorted out," he said with a gentle smile.

Jemma smiled back and tried again to push her nonexistent waves behind her ears.

"And that better be _soon_ ," Fitz joked. "Because the way you keep trying to play with my hair, if this lasts for months you'll be growing mine out."

Jemma laughed at that and shook her head. "Y-you'd look like a p-poo-poodle!" she snorted.

"You could have stopped at 'a poo' and it'd be just as accurate," Fitz winked.

Jemma grinned and then leaned down toward him, her eyes closing.

Fitz frowned and leaned back away from her. "What are you-?" he asked, rather horrified.

Jemma's eyes flew open and she blushed scarlet as she immediately rose back up again. "I w-was g-going t-to..." She gestured from her lips to Fitz's and back. "I th-thought..." She shook her head and looked away, clearly embarrassed. "S-s-sorry!" she apologized. "I'm s-such a d-dis-disaster!"

Fitz looked at her helplessly, at a loss as to what to do. "No!" he said, a bit uncertainly. "I mean, it's not that I don't want to kiss _you_ ," he tried to explain. "It's that I don't want to kiss... y'know..." he pointed at finger at her face and twirled it in a circle to indicate its entirety.

Jemma frowned. "What's wr-wrong with my face?" she asked, clearly offended.

"Well, first of all, it's _mine,_ " Fitz pointed out.

"And it's very h-handsome!" Jemma said, lifting her chin up proudly.

Fitz smirked at that. "I'm going to remind you that you said that, just so you know."

"I've never denied it," Jemma said, looking a bit nervous now.

"But anyway," Fitz ploughed on. "It's not the relative attractiveness that's the problem," he explained. "It's the fact that I don't want to kiss _any_ man, least of all _me_."

"I-I don't h-have a p-problem kissing _m-me_ ," Jemma said reasonably.

"No comment," Fitz said, his lips twisting as he tried not to smile.

Jemma smacked him on the shoulder and rolled her eyes. "S-see if I ever t-try to k-kiss you again!"


	7. Jemma as Fitz

Jemma lay on Fitz's too-hard bed and stared at the ceiling. She'd never admit it, but she'd just spent the better part of ten minutes staring at herself in the mirror. Fitz had changed so much since they'd first boarded the BUS 18 months ago, and she hadn't had a chance really to let it all sink in.

The boyish curls, of course, were gone. Shorn into a more professional, serviceable look that helped him look more his age. She'd cut her own hair for the same reason, but that didn't mean she didn't miss those soft swirls on the top of his head.

His cheeks, too, had grown up along with his haircut. She knew that he'd stopped shaving as a result of the brain damage. Even now, her left hand was wanting to shake any time she got even the slightest bit emotional, so she understood that shaving would have been not just impractical but dangerous not so long ago. She smiled to herself and wondered if he'd continued with the stubble because of laziness or if Skye or someone had perhaps let him know how handsome it looked.

She tried to gaze at his eyes the way she'd been longing to, but they weren't the same now that _she_ was behind them instead of _him_. She looked at herself the way she always had, perhaps with a bit more of a squint or a frown because of the current situation, but otherwise not especially changed (despite her new exterior). When Fitz looked at her, however, he was looking at her with ten years of partnership, best friendship, and family behind it. And more recently, with something else that tugged at her heartstrings and made her feel things that she hadn't been able to define.

Her inspection had ended at that point. It was one thing to stare at the face that she wanted to stare at every day for the near (and probably distant) future, but it wasn't the same without Fitz behind it.

Jemma sighed and blinked, wishing she could sleep. None of these thoughts were particularly helpful at the moment, but they wouldn't stop going around in her mind. Add in the fact that she wasn't wearing her usual pajamas, and she just couldn't seem to get comfortable at all. She was wearing the same tshirt and boxers Fitz had been wearing during the day because they'd agreed they could handle sleeping in their clothes for one night. 

Hopefully, they'd get some clues in the morning to set them back to rights.

Of course, if they _didn't_...

Jemma sighed and sat up in bed. If she didn't get up now and make a To Do list, it would keep her up all night.

She reached out for her phone on the bedside table and tapped out the various things running through her mind. After about ten minutes, it occurred to her that she didn't feel cold. Any time she did this in her _own_ body, she was shivering inside of five minutes, but here she was sitting on the bed in nothing but a shirt and shorts and she felt as warm as if she were fully dressed.

Huh. Advantage: Fitz.

She finished up the last note and replaced her phone on the table before curling up under the covers again.

Her nose scrunched up as she shifted position back and forth, trying to stay lying on her side like she preferred, but she couldn't seem to get comfortable. No matter how she resettled herself, she could still feel Fitz's... equipment hanging one way or the other against her stomach or thigh. And every time she thought too much about it, the damn thing perked right up.

Honestly. How did Fitz _ever_ sleep with this ridiculous appendage?

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. In all of her years studying biology, she never quite got over her childhood belief that having one's reproductive organs on the outside of one's body was a silly way to go about things. It was much neater to have them all nicely contained inside, not flopping about all over the place.

Heaving a large sigh of defeat, she turned onto her back once more.

Sleep was still far from taking her when her phone pinged beside her.

Jemma winced in sympathetic pain. Poor Fitz. She might have to deal with his wayward member, but he had to deal with her cramps and back pain.

He was bearing it fairly well, really, not complaining to her about the stabbing in his gut or the throbbing in his lower back. He _had_ paled at the thought of seeing blood, but he'd taken a deep breath and nodded through her explanations of menstrual product use.

There was a longer pause than she would have expected before Fitz replied, and she was just about to text again when he finally did.

Jemma frowned at her phone for a moment, wondering what could have possibly confused him about...

Her eyes widened and she sat up in bed, horrified.

"Oh my god," she whispered to herself. Her phone dropped, unregarded, into her lap and she covered her face with her hands.

The sandpaper texture of her cheeks only served to remind her just _who_ exactly was seeing just _what_ exactly was in her second drawer.

Her phone pinged again, and she lifted it up with a sense of dread washing over her.

Pressing her lips into a thin, grim line, Jemma typed back rapidly.

Seconds after she hit send, her phone started ringing. She smirked as she answered it.

"Yes?" she asked innocently.

"There was no call for you to be dropping the P-word!" Fitz admonished her.

"The p-P-word?" Jemma snorted. "Are you actually _five_?"

"Ha ha," Fitz said sarcastically. "Just... try to keep your hands _off_ it, okay?"

Jemma rolled her eyes. "I c-could say the s-same about you and my _b-B-words_ ," she replied just as sarcastically.

"I'll have you know I'm being a total gentleman!" Fitz protested.

"And I'm being a c-complete l-lady!" Jemma rejoined.

"Well... good, then."

"Yes."

"Right."

"W-was there anything else?"

Fitz mumbled something that she couldn't quite hear, so she asked him to speak up.

"Motrin?"

"T-top shelf of the m-medicine c-cabinet," Jemma said, much more gently. "Take t-two. First day c-cramps are the _w-worst_."

"First day?" Fitz repeated weakly.

"Uh huh," Jemma nodded. She wished he could see the apologetic look on her face. Of course, if it were anything like any of the other expressions the two of them had been wearing since their unexpected change of residence, it would be rather a strange look indeed.

"Right," Fitz said, and she could almost see his nod of determination. "Two. Got it."

"And Fitz?" Jemma added, smiling even though he couldn't see.

"Yeah?"

"I've g-got a chocolate s-stash in my..." She sighed and squeezed her eyes shut in concentration while Fitz waited patiently for her to finish. "Clothes box," she supplied.

Fitz chuckled wryly on the other end of the phone. "I think I'll let _you_ dig it out," he said. "I've had _enough_ surprises for one night."

"W-watch it!" Jemma warned, still smiling. "Else I'll l-look at your p-p-p-porn."

"Jemma!" Fitz gasped.

But she just grinned and hung up.


	8. Fitz as Jemma

Fitz tried not to stare in the mirror as he brushed his teeth. Or at least, stare at his _face_ instead of... other things.

He bent over to spit out a mouthful of suds and was disconcerted to feel his breasts jiggle with the movement. When he stood up straight again, his nipples were still stiff and very visible in the front of his tshirt. He wished he could blame it all on being cold, but he was willing to admit, if only to himself, that he was... kinda turned on.

If only they didn't _ache_.

Blushing, he raised his eyes to the ceiling as he rinsed out his mouth with some water. This was like the worst delayed gratification nightmare _ever_.

Not that he thought that their going out on a date was going to lead immediately to, ahem, _gratifying_ each other. But still. His odds had seriously increased from what they used to be, and then he'd immediately been cock blocked by the universe.

Bloody cosmos.

And here he was, currently _inside_ the body of the woman he... _respected greatly._

If they didn't get this mess sorted out today...

He spat again and wiped his face before padding back into Jemma's bedroom. Enough of those thoughts. He had to get dressed.

Right. If he were a bra, where would he be?

He was still impressed and more than a little mystified by the way Jemma had managed to take off his bra last night without removing his shirt. Could _all_ women do that?

He briefly considered asking Daisy and Bobbi before shaking his head rapidly when he thought of May. Some curiosities were _not_ worth resolving.

Against his will, his gaze wandered over to Jemma's bedside table.

No. Bad enough to see it by accident. He shouldn't go looking at it on purpose.

His eyes shifted back and forth in time to his shuffling feet as he waffled in the middle of the room.

 _One_ look couldn't hurt, could it? He'd already seen it once. He just wanted to see how it compared to-

"Shit!" he startled as a knock sounded on the door. "Ehm, coming!"

He blushed even harder, despite himself.

Opening the door a tiny sliver, he was relieved to see his own familiar face on the other side of it. Much as it was still disconcerting to see himself walking around in front of him, the sight was more welcome than anyone else would have been.

"Jemma," he breathed out. "Thank god!" He opened the door wider to let her in and closed it behind her before collapsing onto her bed and burying his face in his hands.

"Alright, F-Fitz?" Jemma asked, sitting down beside him and wrapping a friendly arm around his shoulders.

Fitz barked out a sarcastic laugh and raised his head to look at her. " _Sure_ ," he said in a tone that belied his agreement. "I've just woken up in bloodstained sheets before changing my soaked _diaper_ , and I can't even enjoy having boobs because they _hurt_ so much, but still not as much as my _insides_ do." He took in a deep breath and sighed it out. "I know, _I know_ ," he waved at her before she could even begin to speak. "I only have to do this once and you've been doing it every month since you were twelve."

"Th-thirteen," Jemma corrected, her mouth quirking into a lopsided grin.

Fitz laughed at that and finally looked at her properly.

"You shaved," he observed with a frown. When he'd been unable to shave himself because of his hands, Skye had assured him that the stubble was super sexy. Had she just been coddling him?

Jemma pressed her lips together and removed her arm from around him so that she could twist her hands in her lap. "I just..." She stared at the complex structures her fingers were building and rebuilding and looked generally uncomfortable.

Fitz jostled her arm with his shoulder and gave her a friendly smile when she finally looked up.

"Sorry," she apologized. "It just... d-didn't feel like _m-me_."

Fitz nodded in vehement agreement. "I know _exactly_ what you're talking about." He stood up and gestured broadly at her body. "No part of this feels natural to me," he admitted. "I mean, don't get me wrong," he said in a rush. "It looks _great_ on you," he closed his eyes as soon as he said it, but continued on regardless. "I mean, you have a very attractive body." His closed eyes squeezed shut even tighter and he felt actual, physical _pain_ at how stupid he was sounding. "I mean-"

He opened his eyes when he felt a hand slide into his. Jemma was looking up at him with an amused smile, and she didn't look upset at all. Thank god.

She pulled him back down on the bed beside her, and when she leaned in this time, he forced himself to stay put rather than drawing back. She seemed to remember his discomfort from the previous day, however, because she just kissed him on the cheek.

"Thank you," she said sincerely.

"Yeah, well." He looked down at his lap and thrust one hand up under his thick waves to rub the back of his head. With his head still bowed, he looked up at her again. "You're gorgeous, Jem," he admitted. "But I want to _see_ you, not _be_ you."

He watched as what used to be his ears turned pink and was horrified to see Jemma perform the same sort of shifting maneuver that he performed when things were getting a bit tight in the trousers.

"Jemma?" he asked, pinning her with look.

"Mmhmm?" Jemma asked, standing up quickly and spinning so her back was to him. She walked just as quickly over to her bureau and pulled open the top drawer.

So _that's_ where the bras were.

He thought better of asking the question that was on the tip of his tongue and asked a more important one instead.

"Do you have any bras without underwire? I don't want to spend the whole day getting poked."


	9. Skye | Daisy

~~Skye~~ _Daisy_ squeezed her crossed arms closer over her ribs as she walked through the Playground. Her head was down, eyes watching her feet, and her hair swung with each step she took.

She felt like she had a target printed on her back and someone was aiming right at it. She shuddered at the thought and rolled her shoulders to try to relieve the feeling.

Knowing that it was all in her head didn't make it feel any less like everyone was staring at her.

Just _once_ , she'd like to be _normal_. Just to see what it was like. But _nooooo_. No, she had to have the crazy Dad and the somehow even crazier Mom on top of also having super powers that could like, _kill_ people and stuff. Sure, they were useful against a bunch of evil, powered baddies, but they pretty much sucked every other minute of the day.

Gah.

It made her miss the days when she was just an orphan with a stupid name. At least back then she was _human_.

She saw Mack approaching with a hand held up in greeting, but she didn't really want to talk to anyone right now. Quickly ducking through a doorway, she found herself walking into the lab with no good reason for being there.

"- _physiological_ changes, so -th-that's good," Fitz was saying slowly. It looked like he was reading notes off a tablet, but it wasn't his tryptich, which was unusual.

It was probably because Jemma was using it. She pointed to something on the screen, tapping at various points of interest. "Well, the monitoring system noticed spikes in energy readings here, here, and here. Problem _is_ though, that none of those would cause the-"

Fitz had noticed her standing there and tapped Jemma's wrist to stop her talking.

"H-hi, Sk-Daisy," he said, eyes widening and a smile blossoming on his face as he rose from his chair.

Jemma spun around where she was slouched in her desk chair and gave her a small wave and a crooked grin. "Hey, Daisy," she nodded.

"Thanks, guys," Daisy said a bit awkwardly. She knew that calling her by a different name was a bit strange for everyone, but strange as Cal had been, he was also her Dad. He'd felt _so much_ love for her, and now he didn't even know who she was. She was still trying to figure it out, herself, but she knew she was his daughter and his daughter's name was Daisy.

"D-did you want to talk about it?" Fitz asked, taking a hesitant step forward as he threaded his fingers together. "We could h-have some tea?" he continued, looking eager to help. "I could make-" He cut himself off when Jemma turned to look at him. "I mean, _J-Jemma_ could make us some s-sandwiches?"

"Yeah, how about it?" Jemma asked, rising from her seat. She raised her brows and bit her lower lip as she waited for an answer, pulling the sleeves of her blouse down over her hands.

Daisy looked from one well-meaning friend to the other and shook her head. "Maybe another time," she said with an insincere smile. "I'm still processing."

Fitz nodded and pursed his lips in understanding. "Well, w-we'll be here when you're r-ready," he said firmly with another understanding quirk of his lips.

Taking a deep breath, Daisy moved closer to their work table. There was tons of time for intense self-reflection later. When she was alone in her room with a pint of Haagen Dazs and her headphones blaring angsty emo rock. She'd just interrupted some genuine FitzSimmonsing, and she'd never forgive herself if she didn't get these two dorks back on track.

"Whatcha working on?" she asked, leaning over the table to see their screens.

"Uhhh," Jemma hastily closed the video feed that was playing on one side of the tablet and pulled up a chart instead. "This," she said, using both hands to stretch the image and zoom in.

Daisy frowned. Why was Jemma all weird about a video feed from the monolith room?

"Those the power fluctuations you were talking about?" she asked.

"That's right," Jemma nodded. She flipped to the other side of the tablet and pointed to a bunch of complicated looking equations full of letters and symbols that meant nothing to Daisy. "The monolith is emanating an electromagnetic wave, and as that wave propagates, it transports energy."

"H-half of it through the electric f-field," Fitz interrupted. "And half through the-"

"Magnetic," Jemma nodded. "Right." She took a deep breath and dove back into the math. "So if P is the power per unit area that is carried by the wave, this equation solves for the amount of energy transported per unit of time across a cross-sectional area perpendicular to the direction in which the wave is traveling."

Daisy's eyes had glazed over before Fitz's interruption, and by the time Jemma had finished her 'explanation', she was feeling a bit cross-eyed and more than a little dumb.

"Uh, guys?" she prompted with her long-unused 'are you kidding me here?' face that FitzSimmons used to draw out from her a minimum of ten times per day.

Jemma blinked and refocused. "Right, sorry," she shook her head and put the tablet down before resting her hands on her lower back. "Sorry, I forgot."

"F- _Jemma_ ," Fitz said a bit scoldingly, hitting her upper arm gently with the back of his hand.

"Alright, so the monolith has magnets?" Daisy said. That should be _just_ wrong enough to make them both- Yes! They flinched.

"An elecromagnetic _field_ ," Jemma corrected in the same tone of voice that all of her high school teachers had used. At least until she'd dropped out.

"They make good crops?" she joked.

Fitz and Jemma both frowned in confusion.

"What are you-?"

"-not talking about _farms_ , Daisy."

"Alright, alright," Daisy chuckled, raising her hands in surrender. "The monolith is acting weird and you two are trying to figure out why. I got it." She smiled at them both and then pulled them both into a hug. "I'm just happy to see you figuring it out _together_ ," she said, giving them each a squeeze with one arm. "Classic FitzSimmons is just what I needed to cheer me up."

Although FitzSimmons 2.0 - The Relationship would probably do an even better job.

"I'm going to go see if I can find Mack," she said, releasing them. "I need to talk to him about something."

After she left the lab, she paused outside the glass wall and watched them as they worked, heads together and hands touching. "They're _back_ , baby," she whispered to herself with a huge grin.

She had a new spring in her step and a new purpose to her day as she walked down the hall in search of her new partner. There was no way those two could stay apart. Especially not with MackaDaisical on the job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure if that's the Mack/Daisy ship name, but I mean it to be BroTP not OTP. I just think it's a really great mashup :D [all credit to notapepper who told me about MackaDaisical in the first place]


	10. Fitz as Jemma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally posted as Chapter 11. During an editing read through, I decided to switch the two. If you read the comments, keep that in mind :)

_Earlier that evening..._

Fitz watched as Daisy left the room looking much happier than she had when she'd entered it.

It was a bit awkward to think that the issues between himself and Jemma had been putting such a strain on the rest of the team, as well. He knew their partnership had been missed on a technical level, but he hadn't realized what their estrangement had meant to Daisy. He'd been so focused on his own feelings, he hadn't taken hers into account.

"We should do something nice for her," he said as he turned back to his tablet.

"D-Daisy, you mean?" Jemma asked with a curious expression.

Fitz nodded and pressed two fingers to his lips in thought. He pulled them away almost immediately because of the sticky sensation of the lip gloss. He'd allowed Jemma to make him up this morning because they didn't want to raise a fuss until they'd investigated things further, but his whole face felt itchy under the makeup and now his fingers were covered in pink. Sighing, he wiped them on his jeans.

"Fitz," Jemma moaned with a pained expression. "That's going to s-st-... leave a mark!"

"Sorry!" he apologized, raising his hands defensively. "But did I really have to put all of this goop on my face?" he asked petulantly. "You look fine without it."

"B-but I l-like how I l-look _with_ it," Jemma said, crossing her arms stubbornly.

He mumbled something under his breath that he knew Jemma wouldn't approve of but otherwise let the matter go. It was _her_ body, and he was planning on vacating it as soon as possible.

They continued to work in silence for a time, each of them focused on their own expertise. Fitz was jotting notes and calculations on a paper with his right hand while navigating his tablet screens with his left, and he was trying not to notice how much easier it was in Jemma's body than it was in his own.

His left hand was still bad and always would be, but it had improved greatly through a year of rehab and physio. Still, it was nothing compared to the unencumbered movements he was able to accomplish now. It gave him a twinge akin to guilt when he thought about it. Almost as if he were betraying his body by recognizing that Jemma's could do things that his just could not anymore.

At the same time, though, he was no longer so concerned by what he couldn't do because he had developed other ways of getting things done. He was at the point now where not being able to do something was a challenge that he was determined to overcome rather than a barrier that was impossible to surmount. He was thinking more creatively than he had ever thought before. He was more willing to take a risk to accomplish a goal. He was even, strangely, more confident than he could remember being in a long time.

He flicked his eyes over to where Jemma was struggling to plate her samples for microscopic analysis. The minute movements of her experimental dance were marred by the clumsiness of her new body, and he could see her getting upset with herself every time she had to start again. Still, the set of her shoulders and the jut of her chin were clear signs that offers of help would _not_ be welcomed.

He breathed out a soft chuckle. Understatement.

Bringing his mind back to the task at hand, he finished up his calculations and checked them twice before importing them to the modified version of the simulation program he'd coded when the monolith had first come into their possession. He held his breath as he watched it play through.

Nothing happened.

He frowned in concentration and made some adjustments. Had he accounted for...?

Nothing again.

His frown deepened. Standing up, he leaned over the computer, almost as if he were attempting to intimidate it, and pounded the keys harder than was necessary.

"Fitz?" Jemma asked, lifting her head up from her microscope and half-turning on her stool to look over her shoulder at him.

"Damnit!" he cursed as once again the simulation failed to produce any results.

"W-what is it?" Jemma asked, standing up and moving over to his station.

Fitz gave her an apologetic look and stuffed one hand in his pocket while the other smoothed down his hair. "This might not be as easy as I'd thought," he admitted.

"H- _how_ long?" Jemma asked, and the horrified look in her eyes was reflected in his.

Fitz turned away so that he wouldn't have to see himself looking so stricken and started rearranging the items on his desk. "A month?" he repeated weakly.

" _How_ long?" Jemma asked again, sounding somehow even more incredulous the second time.

He heard a soft thump behind him and turned back around to see that Jemma had collapsed in his desk chair.

"I mean," he hurried to mollify her. "It'll be less than that if the program finds a solution before it completes the full run, but..."

"A _m-month_!" Jemma whispered, hands clasped around her neck.

"Yeah," Fitz nodded, pulling up her stool and perching on it. "But like I said, that's worst case scenario." He reached out and squeezed her shoulder in reassurance. "It might only be a day or two."

"Ass-ss-ssuming it finds a s-s-s-olution at all!" Jemma moaned.

Fitz _really_ didn't want to think about that possibility. He'd been in Jemma's body for less than a day, and already he was itching to get out. Literally. He scratched his neck again, tired of the constant tickle of her hair brushing against his skin. He was definitely going to have to learn about ponytails before he went mad.

For the first time in a long time, Fitz wasn't in the mood to eat lunch. Instead, he and Jemma had retired to her quarters for some problem solving and action planning.

"We should tell _Coulson_ , at least," he argued from his seat beside her on her bed. "The Director needs to know that the monolith is active _and_ that we're... not ourselves just now."

"N-not until w-we have a _p-plan_ ," Jemma shook her head stubbornly.

Fitz sighed. No matter whose body she was in, Jemma liked to be prepared. He already knew that she wasn't going to budge on the issue, but he'd had to state his objection at least before giving in.

" _Fine_ ," he said, his tone indicating it was anything but. Groaning in frustration, he collapsed back to lie down on her mattress, his knees still bent and legs hanging over the side. It was a strangely comfortable position, and with his painkillers wearing off, he was happy to discover it.

"Wh-where do we s-start?" Jemma asked. She stretched one hand out on the mattress by his shoulder and leaned over him slightly, but just enough that they could look each other in the face while they talked. He offered her a smile of thanks. He really _did_ feel better lying down like this, and she must have realized that.

"Well," he shrugged awkwardly as the obvious issue occurred to him first. "I suppose if we're going to be like this for the next little while," they both winced at the vagueness of the timeframe, "We're going to hve to deal with the elephant in the room."

"N-n-n-.." jemma's face screwed up as she tried to think of the word, and for once he jumped in to supply it for her.

"Nudity," he nodded with a grim expression. "Exactly."

Jemma attempted a smile but it ended up looking more like a grimace. "G-good thing we've been 'd-dating' for ten years," she joked, putting the word in finger quotes.

Their eyes met briefly before they both blushed and looked away.

"Really, though," Fitz reasoned while staring at her ceiling. "It's not like we're doing this for _sexual_ reasons," he closed his eyes and mentally kicked himself, but kept going anyway to save Jemma the trouble. "I just really want to take a shower."

"Have a b-bath," Jemma advised kindly. "It'll h-help with the c-cramping."

Fitz nodded his thanks. Then he chuckled. "I have to say," he admitted jokingly. "I'd really rather hoped that the first time I saw you naked you'd be actually in the room with me at the time."

"M-me too," Jemma laughed shyly.

Their eyes met again and after a moment had passed, they both raised their brows, considering.

"Well..."

 


	11. Jemma as Fitz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was originally posted as Chapter 10. During an editing read-through, I decided to swap the chapter order. If you like to read comments, that's why they don't match up.

Jemma's breath came quickly and shallowly as she shifted from one foot to the other. She was having a difficult time controlling her face. She could feel her eyebrows raising up again and forced them back down, frowning in her effort to make them stay put. Her mouth kept opening and closing a bit uselessly, too, and no matter how hard she pressed her lips together they just kept parting again.

Her left hand was dancing a jig at her side, and she thrust it into her pocket after even clenching it in a fist wouldn't stop it jittering.

She also had to pee.

"I-I'm j-just going t-to..." she trailed off and pointed an awkward finger toward the toilet.

Fitz took a deep breath but didn't meet her gaze. He just nodded and continued staring at the floor in front of his feet, his hands pressed against his lower back and his face half-hidden by the curtain of his hair.

He looked about as comfortable with what they were about to do as she was.

Once inside the other room, Jemma pulled down her jeans and boxers and sat on the toilet, staring straight ahead. She supposed she'd have to learn how to do this standing up at some point, but she had enough other things to adjust to already and she didn't really want one more.

It felt very strange indeed not to wipe up before pulling up her pants.

As she washed her hands, she looked at Fitz's face in the mirror and tried to remember it was actually _her_ face, at least for now.

With a shake of her head, she opened her eyes again and pierced herself with a determined expression. She couldn't remember the last time she and Fitz had _failed_ to solve a problem. ...Eventually. But with the data they had on the monolith so far, it didn't look like they'd be able to switch themselves back as quickly as they'd first hoped. It wouldn't be today at all, and probably not even this week.

She really hoped it wouldn't be forever.

Her eyes closed as she felt her heart sink in her chest at that idea.

"We can _do_ this," she whispered.

Then her lower lip wobbled a bit.

She rolled her eyes at her own nervousness and pressed her lips more firmly together while drying her hands. They were just being practical, that's all. Practical and proactive. Facing the problem head on and dealing with it. She nodded firmly to herself.

Right. Time to get back in there.

Fitz greeted her return with a panicked expression that he tried to turn into a smile.

He failed gloriously, but she appreciated the effort.

"R-ready?" Jemma asked with a rather sickly smile of her own. She couldn't help hoping that he'd have a sudden flash of brilliant insight that would lead to them not having to do this after all.

"Not at all," Fitz laughed humourlessly. Then he shrugged and pulled on his ear with a half-grin on his face. His casual movement was marred by his frown when he encountered a stud earring in his lobe. His grin soured and he shook his head in resignation. "But you're right, we really do need to..." he swept one open hand up and down in front of his current body.

Jemma nodded and swallowed hard. "Mmhmm," she nodded slowly. "Since we're g-going to be l-like this for-"

"-For the next few days," Fitz finished for her.

He was lying and they both knew it, but she smiled her thanks anyway. Neither one of them wanted to consider how long this situation might _really_ last.

"D-do you w-want to go f-first?" she asked shyly, once more trying to scoop her hair behind her ears. She grimaced at her own movement and then shook her head to clear it. "Or sh-should I?"

"I'd say 'ladies first'," Fitz laughed hollowly. "But considering our current situation, that'd just add to the confusion."

Jemma smiled despite herself.

"Together?" Fitz asked, his brows raised uncertainly.

She nodded and took another deep breath. "And F-Fitz?" she asked as her hands rested on the top button of her shirt.

"Yeah?" he asked, his own fingers poised at the button of his jeans.

"I-if this h- _had_ to happen," she said, hoping that he could tell with this face how sincere she was. "I'm g-glad it was w-with _you_."

She didn't know how he managed it, but the wide smile that broke across the familiar features of her own face was distinctly and 100% Fitz. That look, that one right there in his wide brown eyes, that was the look she'd tried to see in the mirror last night.

This time, instead of sinking in her chest, her heart swelled up and seemed to fill her up to bursting.

"Imagine if you were about to do this with Hunter?" Fitz joked.

"Or y-you with Daisy," Jemma teased back.

"Coulson!" Fitz laughed.

" _M-M-May_!" Jemma howled.

That thought sobered them both up. They stood there, in the middle of Jemma's room, staring awkwardly at each other, neither one wanting to make the first move.

Fitz's brow crinkled in concern and his eyes squinted slightly with worry. "Just get it over with?" he asked.

Jemma nodded, lips pressed together and brows raised apologetically. They'd been procrastinating this for the better part of an hour now. They both knew it had to be done, so they might as well just  _do_ it. "On th-three?"

"One," Fitz said, grabbing the hem of his sweater.

"T-two," Jemma said, unbuttoning her shirt. Her gut was roiling with nerves, but if they couldn't switch back they had to move forward.

"Three," they said together.

And then the clothes started coming off.


	12. Jemma as Fitz

Jemma felt a twitch in her lower abdomen when she shrugged her shirt off. She'd felt the same twitch several times while in Fitz's body, and she blushed at what it meant, but since Fitz would know better than _literally_ anyone what was going on, she tried not to feel too self-conscious about it.

She _did_ however try to think of exactly how to phrase her reasons for explaining it.

_It's just that you're going to see me naked. Except technically you're going to see yourself naked? But also me, at the same time?_

She shook her head as she wrestled with the button on her jeans. Why did men and women have their buttons on opposite sides? It probably had something to do with the upper classes having maids and things to dress them once upon a time. Except both men _and_ women had had servants for that purpose, so-

"Jemma?" Fitz asked, half-crouched over with his jeans partway down his thighs. His eyebrows were raised and he looked rather like a deer in the headlamps. As if perhaps she'd changed her mind about this whole thing and he should really be getting dressed again.

She blinked her eyes back into focus and offered him a tight, nervous smile. "S-sorry," she apologized. "I got, um..." she looked down past her hands at the fly of her jeans. She was feeling very warm now, and she gulped hard as arousal battled with guilt. "D-d-d-distracted?" she finished weakly.

Fitz's face flushed quickly and completely and she stared in surprise. She'd had no idea her body was capable of doing that. She made a mental note to redo their physicals to make sure that no physiological changes had occurred.

"You're, um," Fitz cleared his throat, still frozen in place but now staring at the front of her jeans. "I mean," he blinked and shook his head before looking up to her face. "You're..." his eyes shifted left and right and his face took on a desperate look. "You're...?" He met her eyes again, not quite willing to _say_ it.

Jemma pressed her lips together and looked away before nodding confirmation.

"Ah," Fitz acknowledged awkwardly. "Right," he nodded. He kept nodding much longer than necessary. Then, just as Jemma was unzipping her jeans, she heard him mutter under his breath, "Of bloody _course_."

Smiling despite herself, Jemma followed Fitz's lead in removing her jeans. They both paused as they reached their underwear, neither one feeling entirely sure about what they were doing.

She felt a bit ridiculous standing there with one hand in front of her penis and the other arm crossed over her nonexistent breasts, but then she risked a glance at Fitz and he had both hands cupped in front of his vulva, so it seemed she wasn't the only one who couldn't quite control her hind brain when it came to this situation.

Speaking of which, things were definitely growing in the region of her boxers and each throb made her skin feel tauter and more sensitive. She could feel her heartbeat thrumming through its length and her breathing matched its speed and intensity.

She couldn't help noticing that Fitz's nipples were hard and pressing against his bra. She desperately hoped he'd like how they looked.

Of course, she _knew_ he liked breasts. She'd run across his porn collection more than once in their decade of friendship, much to both of their chagrin. She just didn't know whether or not he'd like _hers._

 _His_?

_Theirs?_

Her eyebrows drew together in a frown as her eyes narrowed to slits in concentration. Could she really claim dominion over a body she wasn't inhabiting? Was she comfortable with the idea of Fitz doing what he pleased with her body while she was occupying his? If she gave in to her urges and did what her hormones were currently  telling her to do, would that be sexual assault? If not, would it be sex or masturbation or some grey area in between?

What if Fitz decided he wanted to see for himself what that toy in her nightstand's second drawer could do?

Another twitch caused her penis to rub against her thigh, and a shiver ran down her back at the pleasure of it. That was almost as much pleasure as the opening salvo of cunnilingus.

"Oh my," she gasped quietly.

Her eyes widened in both surprise and mortification at the same time. Surprise at the sensations currently traveling through her body and mortification because her unconscious exclamation had drawn Fitz's attention.

He couldn't seem to decide if he wanted to stare at her or focus on any and every other part of her bedroom, but after a few rotations around the room, their eyes met and caught.

Fitz was struggling with the back clasp of his bra, obviously unused to unsnapping one. It seemed that focusing on her face, however, also helped to focus his attention because his hands stopped struggling and Jemma watched as the straps slackened on his shoulders and the cups loosened under his breasts.

"W-wait!" she burst out.

"What?" Fitz asked, hurriedly attempting to catch his bra before it completely revealed his breasts to him. The movement was made even more awkward by the fact that he tried to do it without touching his breasts at all. After a moment of fumbling, he managed to catch it by the band and pull it tight against his chest, thus keeping everything concealed without actually coming into contact with any questionable areas.

"W-we need to t-talk first!" Jemma panted, trying to ignore the straining feeling against the front of her boxers. How could a cotton/poly blend feel that _good_?

"What? _Now_?" Fitz asked incredulously.

She had to admit, he had a point.

"Yes," she nodded firmly.

She had a point as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to my friend Nick who did me the favour of telling me what it feels like to get a boner :) (more to *ahem* come in future chapters!)


	13. Fitz as Jemma

[[click for larger image](http://40.media.tumblr.com/31bba5458bdcac2ff81298f3e5f8f88d/tumblr_o31b3zSAQL1te2h9lo1_r1_1280.png)]

Fitz jutted out his jaw as he slammed the pen down on top of the notebook. Sex? Masturbation? What was Jemma thinking??

... Alright, so it was pretty obvious what Jemma was thinking.

But _what_ was she _thinking_?

"R-really, Fitz?" Jemma asked with a raised eyebrow as she took in his edits to her list of rules. "Even if we're switched like this _p-per-per..._?" She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. " _Forever?_ You can't just s-stick your h-head in the... the... the..." She closed her eyes and balled her hands into impotent fists. "... and pretend the issue doesn't exist!"

Fitz attempted to cross his arms over his chest but was once again stymied by the presence of breasts. It was even worse now that he wasn't wearing a bra because somehow he managed to get one breast above his arms and the other one trapped underneath. Sighing, he tugged the belt of his robe tighter and shoved his thumbs underneath it instead.

"I _can_ and I _will_ ," he said stubbornly. "I don't need you..." he waved vaguely around her midsection. "You..." his hand twisted this way and that, simultaneously dismissing and encompassing what he was referring to. "Just... lay off it, will you?" he asked peevishly.

"I d-don't have a p-problem with you..." Jemma thrust her chin in the general direction of Fitz's breasts. "... You know," she said haughtily, nose raised in the air.

Fitz wasn't fooled, though. He could see the tremor in her lower lip and the glance at him out of the corner of her eye. Jemma was definitely doing the false-confidence thing that she did when she was trying to cover up her nerves.

"Look," he said in a gentler tone as he pulled her down next to him on her bed. "I agree with you about the necessity of bathing."

He had to laugh at her, 'Fitz, please' expression.

" _Obviously,_ " he continued with an eyeroll. "But when it comes to that ... other stuff," he shrugged awkwardly and then pulled his robe back onto his shoulder.

"Do you..." Jemma cleared her throat and looked at their joined hands. "Not..." she took a deep breath before plunging on with her question. "W-w-want to? With m-me?"

He watched his own blue eyes as they blinked rapidly, their lashes looking damp, and he couldn't believe that Jemma would _ever_ think...

"Of _course_ I do!" he insisted, pulling on her hand to drag her into a hug. "Just..." he chuckled against her temple. "Not when you're, y'know..." he pulled her back so he could look into his face with her expression on it. " _Me_ ," he said with a lopsided grin.

Jemma sniffed loudly and smiled back. "What's _wr-wrong_ with you?" she teased. "I'm r-r-rather f-fond of you, you kn-know."

" _Fond_ , is it?" Fitz grinned wider, raising a teasing brow and squinting at her mockingly. "With _this_ kind of talk," he lifted her notebook full of rules and waved it in front of her, "I'd say you're pretty _warm for my form_."

Damnit. Jemma's eyebrows just wouldn't waggle like his did.

"N-no comment," Jemma said dryly through a smile and a blush.

"Tell you what," Fitz said, reaching past her to put her notebook on her bedside table.

"Yeah?" Jemma whispered right beside his ear. Her breath tickled, and he felt himself shiver.

He sat back where he had been, but somehow their faces were a lot closer than they had been before. The way she was looking at him had his heart beating faster, and he had to swallow because his throat suddenly felt dry.

What in the world had he been about to say?

"Fitz?" she whispered again, and he tried to focus on her eyes instead of his face.

He felt a sort of a ... buzzing? tingling? vibrating? feeling in his chest and licked his lips.

"Yeah?" he whispered back. Their faces were still just a few inches apart, and he felt himself leaning in a bit closer.

"Close your eyes," Jemma said, and her voice was so soft he could barely hear it, but he did it anyway.

And then he leaned in even closer and the buzzing feeling swooped down into his stomach.

He had a sudden wild thought of appreciation that Jemma had shaved his face that morning, and then he tried not to think about what she looked like now and concentrated on what she'd looked like for the past ten years.

And then he kissed her.


	14. Hunter

"Fitz! My man!" Hunter said, clapping him on the back. He grinned widely at the way the poor guy jumped. "That's Simmons' room, innit?" he asked casually, squeezing Fitz's shoulder and leaving his arm draped casually around him as they continued down the hallway. Talking about _his_ romantic troubles might be a nice distraction from how things were going with Bob.

"Mmhmm," Fitz nodded, eyes wide and slightly fearful.

"Getting a bit of an early start on it, aren't you two?" he teased with a grin. "Having a bit of 'afternoon delight,' were you?" He winked broadly and reveled in the pink blush that crept over Fitz's cheeks.

He really was just _too_ easy. The rate those two were going, they'd maybe hold hands in another _six months._

"No!" Fitz protested, looking both shocked and guilty.

Hunter immediately stopped short in the hallway, pulling Fitz to a stop with him. That wasn't his usual answer. Usually when he got teased about Simmons, he just shrugged and mumbled something, he didn't get all loud and defensive like that. Turning so that they faced each other, he scanned Fitz's face with a searching look. Yes, he was definitely hiding something. Something _big_.

But what could it...?

"You asked her out, didn't you?" Hunter asked suddenly, not quite able to keep the hint of recrimination out of his voice.

Fitz opened his mouth and closed it again without saying anything. Then he shrugged and smiled awkwardly.

"Fitz!" Hunter protested with a whine, bowing his head and covering his eyes with one hand. Doing it at lunch time? In her quarters? He clapped his other hand on Fitz's shoulder as if to steady them both. "Fitz, Fitz, _Fitz_!" He shook his head tragically. " _What_ did I tell you?" he asked, his head dropping back to stare at the ceiling while his hands swung down to his sides. Why did he even bother sharing his years of experience wooing the female of the species if the people who truly _needed_ to learn from his expertise refused to listen?

"Ehm," Fitz hedged, eyes darting back and forth as if looking for an escape route.

"Be _romantic_ , I said," Hunter gestured dramatically. "Take her aside of an evening and tell her the date starts _now_ , right?" He stared at Fitz with his eyebrows raised so high his forehead crinkled and his eyes so wide they seemed to take up half his face. "Don't give her the chance to say no!" Shaking his head, he tutted and sighed and put his hands on his hips in frustration. He should have realized that Fitz wouldn't be able to pull off a move like that. He should have taught him the one with the long-stemmed rose and the blazer.

Fitz's face registered an awkward apology, but he still didn't seem quite able to get any words out.

"You listened to _Mack_ , didn't you?" Hunter accused, jabbing a finger toward him. The man hadn't dated anyone in at least three years, so of _course_ he'd be a great source of advice on how to ask a girl out. He rolled his eyes and pierced Fitz with a pitying look.

"I-I-I-"

"You _did_ ," he blew out a breath in a huff.  _Of course_ he did. The absolute twat. "And a fat load of good it did you, did it?" He looked back toward Jemma's room and shook his head sadly. "Asking her to go eat someplace nice," he scoffed under his breath. "As if that would ever actually _work_ on a girl." Way too vague. Too many avenues for excuses and refusals. In dating, as in poker, you had to play the game with confidence even if your cards were shite.

Fitz shrugged again, but this time his face looked less apologetic and more hopeful. His lips came together and formed an O as he took a breath. "Well..." he started.

"Forget her, mate," Hunter said, clapping his arm around Fitz's shoulders again and guiding them down the hall once more. The poor kid was going to chase after her like a puppy forever if he didn't nip this thing in the bud right now. "If she can't see what a catch you are, then she doesn't deserve you!" He started mentally planning out an evening of video games and beer. Best to keep him distracted at a time like this. "I mean," he laughed as they paused outside of the door to the lab and he patted Fitz's back one more time in parting. "At least you didn't tell her you love her, right?" he said cheerfully. "So there's that, at least."

Fitz looked so gobsmacked at the very idea that Hunter immediately regretted suggesting it. The lad was already depressed enough as it was, and here he is reminding him he'd just lost the woman he loved.

Hunter clenched his teeth together at the thought. So much for distracting him from thoughts of Bobbi.

"Here's what we're going to do," he said brightly, trying to move them past the moment. " _You_ ," he pointed to Fitz, "Are going to go in _there_ ," he jutted his thumb toward the lab, "And do that," he twirled his finger vaguely, "Science thing you do."

He was glad that he had a decade and a half of spy work under his belt because it meant he could keep a poker face despite Fitz's twitch at the term 'science thing.'

"Ah ah ah!" He held his finger up to silence whatever protest was about to be mounted. "And _I_ am going to go out on a supply run for beer and pretzels and the greasiest pizza I can find." He grinned broadly and bounced lightly on his toes in anticipation. "It's time for a proper lads' night, that's what." That should keep them _both_ drunk and preoccupied enough that they wouldn't spend the night moping over women.

Fitz looked set to disagree, so Hunter cut him off before he could.

"You, me, Mack," he listed them off on his fingers. "Coulson probably, too, if you let me tell him why."

Fitz shook his head in wide-eyed horror at the suggestion.

"Fair enough, fair enough," Hunter soothed, palms wide to show a lack of aggression. "We'll get you through this, Fitz," he said reassuringly. "Trust me. It'll all work out in the end."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "the long stemmed rose and the blazer" is seduction advice stolen from the TV show Chuck :D


	15. Various Cell Phones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pay careful attention to the contact name at the top of the phone or this might get confusing. Hell, it might get confusing anyway. If so, lemme know and I'll put captions for who the conversations are between.

Jemma to Fitz:

 

Hunter to Mack:

 

Fitz to Jemma:

 

Mack to Fitz:

 

Fitz to Hunter:

 

Hunter to Mack:

 

Fitz to Jemma:

 

Mack to Hunter:

 

 

Fitz to Hunter:

 

Mack to Fitz:

 

 

Jemma to Fitz:

 

 

Mack to Hunter:

 

Fitz to Jemma:

 

Mack to Hunter:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew. I was going to do more, but these took almost 3 hours and now I've got a carpal tunnel flare up :P Sometimes being creative with my chapters probably isn't worth it ;)


	16. Fitz as Jemma

_Meanwhile..._

Fitz lay back with his eyes closed and sighed. Jemma had been right. The steaming hot bath was working wonders on his aching uterus and going a long way to making him feel more like himself.

He cracked one eye open and surveyed his naked body. 

Perhaps "feeling like himself" wasn't 100% accurate.

Closing his eye again, he rested his arms on the side of the tub and sank in a little deeper. His brow wrinkled at the odd feeling of his breasts moving of their own accord, floating slightly in the water. He shifted his body side to side experimentally, feeling them swish through the water.

Weird.

Not nearly as weird as kissing his own face had been, of course. But he'd been wanting to kiss Jemma for longer than he cared to admit, and ever since she'd tearfully informed him that she might just care for him that way as well, he'd been distracted by the idea. Her accepting his frankly embarrassing invitation to dinner had buoyed his hopes even higher that she might want to kiss him back, but then...

He moaned and splashed a bit more. Stupid ruddy _rock_.

Truth be told, however, he was at least _marginally_ benefiting from the situation. Putting aside the fact that he was currently bathing Jemma's naked body...

He opened his eyes again and took another long, admiring look. Then he shook his head in determination and closed his eyes again.

 _Besides that fact_ , there was also the revelation that Jemma was attracted to him, as well. _Very_ attracted, if her near-constant state of arousal were any indication.

Fitz had to chuckle at that. From what he'd seen, the poor girl was in a state the likes of which he hadn't experienced himself since puberty.

She hadn't really appreciated the teasing very much. But she _had_ thanked him for the erection-wrangling tips he'd given her.

Really, that was just a matter of self-defense. He didn't need the whole base crawling with rumours of his perpetual hard-on.

Just the thought of it was enough to make him groan and cover his face with his hands.

The feel of his cheeks under his fingers brought him back to the memory of their kiss. This cheek was smooth and soft to the touch, but that one, the one he'd been kissing, the one that was usually his, had felt rougher despite the shave.

And the lips he'd kissed... They were full and pink, but not as full as the ones he had now. Still, they'd fit together brilliantly. So brilliantly that one kiss had turned into several and lips had opened up to allow tongues to meet.

Arousal as a woman was very different from arousal as a man. When he was himself, there was heat and movement and straining against skin. But now that he was Jemma it was all tingling and clenching and a dull, empty ache. The flutters in his stomach had actually overtaken the cramps in his gut, and that had definitely been a welcome, if brief, respite.

Even now, just remembering it, he could feel a tug of something pulling at his insides. Looking at his body once more, he shook his head at the unfairness of it all. Women's bodies could be right on the edge of orgasm and you might not know it if they had a good poker face. But a man could look like the worst kind of horny bastard if he spent too long on the wrong kind of daydream.

With another shake of his head, Fitz sat back up in the bath, shivering a bit at the feeling of the cold air on his wet back, and contemplated his legs and the pink razor sitting in the shower caddy. They were going on a date tonight. Would Jemma expect him to shave her legs? He knew they'd agreed that it was their own choice for this particular grooming ritual, but he also knew from every TV show and romantic comedy he'd ever seen that women shaved their legs before going on a date with a guy they really liked. And he _really_ liked Jemma.

Still, from the looks of things she hadn't bothered shaving them for several days herself, and he didn't see how that was a problem. But what if _Jemma_ thought it was a problem? What if him not shaving his legs made her think he wasn't... interested? Not that he _was_ "interested" while they were in their current situation, but...

Reaching for his phone where it sat on a little stool by the bath, he was about to text her when she texted him instead.

Damnit! They'd forgotten to switch phones!

Wait. Should they switch phones? Anyone calling or texting his phone would need to speak to _him_ not to his body. But speaking to someone from Jemma's body with his own brain would immediately reveal that something strange was happening, and they needed to gather more information before that happened.

More texts were coming in now, from both Jemma and Mack, and a feeling of dread crept over him. He held his breath as he texted Hunter. Then facepalmed almost immediately as the texts kept blowing up his phone.

He and Mack _really_ needed to get Hunter sorted on the Bobbi front before the poor guy started trying to help Daisy out with Lincoln... or pair Coulson up with some hot lady spy from the NSA or something like that.

Putting his phone carefully back on the stool so as not to drop it in the bath water, Fitz sighed and reached down to pull the stopper out of the drain. He had to get dressed and go find Jemma before she got him into any _more_ trouble.


	17. Jemma as Fitz

Jemma squinted at Fitz as she watched him approach. There was something wro.... No. _No_. Her eyes widened in horror and her mouth opened in an O of embarrassed rage.

Walking as quickly as she dared to and still not draw attention, she hurried over to Fitz and grabbed him by the arm, turning him about-face in the corridor so that his back faced the glass wall of the lab.

" _Fitz!_ " she hissed into his ear.

" _Jemma!_ " he hissed back, just as annoyed as she was. "What in the _world_ did you s-"

" _Wh-_ _Where_ is your _b-b-_ _bra_?!" Jemma interrupted him. It took every ounce of willpower she had in order to continue whispering when all she wanted to do was shout. "You can't just-"

"Those hooks are bloody _impossible_ ," he said, clearly frustrated. "Let me tell you, as an engineer, I'm abso-"

"I don't _c-care_ how 'imp-p-possible' they are," Jemma said through gritted teeth as her fingers started digging into his arm. "You need to-"

"Hey!" Fitz frowned, squirming his arm free from her grasp. An impish grin made its way over his face, and Jemma felt more than a little bit put out to see it plastered over her own features. "Calm your tits," he said, clearly very much impressed with his own wordplay.

"I will _n-not_ calm my t-t-tits, _Leo_ ," Jemma said in a threatening tone, her face as dark as a storm cloud. "And if you d-don't go right back to m-my room and put on a b-bra, I  m-might just get _c-c-c-cocky_." She raised a significant eyebrow and then glanced down toward her crotch.

"You _wouldn't_ ," Fitz whispered.

"If you go c-c-commando, _s-so do I_."

She crossed her arms with a satisfied smirk as Fitz gracelessly nodded his agreement.

" _Fine_ ," he said, the word bursting out in an annoyed huff. "But you have to come with me and do up the snaps!"

Jemma rolled her eyes and dropped her arms to her sides in surrender. "Alright," she agreed. "B-but you r-really do have to l-l-learn how to d-do this yours-s-self!" They were already spending so much time alone together in her room that she assumed the rumour mill had started.

They were just turning the corner to her quarters when they ran into Mack.

"Turbo," Mack said with a wide smile. "Just the man I was looking for." He turned to Jemma and gave her a grin as well. "Simmons," he said cheerfully. "Can I steal him from you for a minute?"

"Uhh," Fitz's eyes widened and he looked from Mack to Jemma and back, helplessly.

Jemma knew she must look similarly nervous. She could probably guess what Mack wanted to talk about.

Concentrating hard to keep herself from stuttering, Jemma said slowly in her best attempt at a Scottish accent, "Can I meet youuuu in the kitchen in a minnnnute?" she asked, trying to cover up her strange speech pattern with a smile. "Jemmmmmma just forgot ssssssomething in her roommmmm."

Mack's eyes flicked down to Fitz's chest and flicked back up again rapidly. He licked his lips before pressing them together and nodding. "Mmhmm," he said, obviously trying to hold his tongue. "Take your time," he said, seriously.

"Thanks," Fitz said, and Jemma tried not to cringe at his pronunciation. He was going to have to tone it down if he wanted to be at all believable.

Jemma looked over her shoulder just as they were opening her door and Mack was still watching them with a grin on his face. When they made eye contact, he winked and gave her a thumbs up. 

"Oh god," she muttered, hustling Fitz inside.

"What?" Fitz asked, concentrating hard on unbuttoning his blouse. Jemma felt better that she wasn't the only one who had difficulty with the buttons being on the wrong side.

"M-Mack just w-winked at me!" she groaned, slouching over to her dresser. "And g-gave me a th-thumbs up!" she wailed, tugging the top drawer open with a forceful pull. " _H-here_ ," she said, thrusting a plain black bra at Fitz after he finished taking off his shirt.

She forced herself not to blush at the fact that Fitz was now able to see her naked body any time he wished. Then she forced her mind away from the fact that she could see _Fitz's_ naked body any time _she_ wished. Now was not the time.

Fitz mumbled something apologetic as his cheeks reddened, and he looked down at the bra in his hands rather than at her face. His hair had swung forward to partially conceal his features, but she could still see him worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.

Her annoyance drained away as she realized that her conversation with Mack, however it went, would probably be at least as embarrassing for Fitz as Mack seeing her braless breasts had been for her. She'd do her best to keep it short and avoid topics that Fitz might rather she not know too much about, but she just couldn't guarantee that she wouldn't hear _anything_ he'd rather she not hear.

Smiling fondly, she approached Fitz and gently took the bra out of his hands. "If y-you do it th-this way," she said, looping the bra around his waist so that the hooks were in the front, "It m-might be a b-bit easier," she suggested.

She let Fitz take the two sides of the clasp and hook them together, and then she showed him how to spin the bra around to the back again. Lifting one of his hands slowly in hers, she slipped it under the shoulder strap before doing the same thing with his other hand. They really were standing quite close together, she realized. So close, she could hear his breathing.

She tugged gently upwards on the straps, pulling the bra up Fitz's ribcage and skimming her fingers up his arms. Her own breathing was coming a bit louder now, and she watched as Fitz's chest flushed and his nipples hardened. She could feel her own arousal beginning to lengthen in her pants.

What had Fitz said about making it go down?

She closed her eyes and tried to think of the last necropsy she'd performed. The one where the animal had been so deformed in the attack that she'd been unable to identify what it even _was_ for the first two hours. She felt Fitz's hands take over from hers on the straps as she continued to reconstruct the necropsy in her mind's eye, going step by step through the process of identifying teeth and bones, some not much more than fragments, on her way to finding out what had caused such damage.

Finally, she felt the stirring in her gut calm down, and she opened her eyes. Fitz had his bra on and was looking at her curiously.

"Professor Vaughn in a speedo?" he asked curiously.

Jemma laughed and curled her fingers over her ears, still wishing she had hair that she could play with. "N-necropsy," she admitted with a shrug.

Fitz made a disgusted face and a disgusting noise. "That'll do it," he agreed. And then he stepped away from her to pick up his blouse from her bed.

The moment was over, but she couldn't help but think of that other moment, only an hour before, and how it had ended very differently. She found herself wishing very hard indeed that she hadn't suggested they wait until after their date to get... physical.


	18. Mack

Mack looked up from his sandwich preparations as Coulson entered the kitchen. "PB&J?" he asked, gesturing at the loaf of bread with his jam-covered knife.

Coulson gave him a tight smile in acknowledgement. "Thanks. I'm good."

"Suit yourself," Mack shrugged. He continued to spread the jam over the peanut butter with quick yet precise strokes. Balance was the key. Too much jam and it spilled out the sides. Too much peanut butter and it stuck to the roof of your mouth. Too much bread and the whole sandwich just failed on the first bite.

"Wanna tell me why Hunter," Coulson lifted the file in his hand and flipped it open on the counter as if to read it. He barely glanced down at the page before looking back up at Mack, "Requisitioned an MDX for a, and I quote, 'fact-finding mission in the den of iniquity known as Las Vegas'?" The question was mildly put and the expression was politely interested, but Mack wasn't falling for that Clark Kent exterior.

"No, sir," he said, shaking his head slowly as he wiped the knife before proceeding to cutting off the crusts. "It's definitely _not_ because he's projecting his own relationship issues with Bobbi onto Fitz and Simmons, I know that much." He looked up and met Coulson's eye significantly as he took a large bite of his sandwich.

Mmmm. Perfect.

"Good to know," Coulson nodded. He turned the corners of his lips up an extra five degrees and closed the file. "Enjoy your sandwich."

"Thank you, sir."

Mack sighed into his glass of milk as Coulson left the room. There was a reason why Hunter was a mercenary and not a spy. He could fight, but subtlety was so far from his strong suit it was actually playing croquet.

He was just taking another bite of his sandwich when Fitz walked somewhat nervously into the room. He was more than a little surprised to see him.

"Fitz, man," he said, frowning at him and shaking his head. "Turbo's just supposed to be a nickname."

"Wwwhat?" Fitz asked, clearly confused. He was doing that slow talking thing he'd been doing earlier, and his left hand was buried so deep in his pocket that Mack was surprised it hadn't poked out the other side. Poor kid was clearly nervous as hell over this whole Simmons thing and it was probably making his symptoms flare up.

Mack clapped him on the back and guided him to a stool at the kitchen island. "PB&J?" he asked, already reaching for the bread.

"Nnno, thanks," Fitz said with an apologetic smile. "Not hhhungry."

"Not-" Mack blinked in surprise. "Man, she's got you all tied up in knots again, doesn't she?" he asked sympathetically.

Fitz shrugged and pressed his lips together. His hands came up to his ears, and then he dropped the left one and gripped the back of his neck with the right.

"Look," Mack said seriously, looking Fitz in the eye. "You asked her for dinner and she said yes, right?"

Fitz nodded, still gripping the back of his neck.

"And you told her it was a date this time?" The last four times he'd asked, he'd neglected to mention that aspect of it and then been dismayed at the fact that she'd treated it like any dinner they'd gone out on when they were just friends. It had been all Mack could do not to facepalm in front of the poor kid, but he'd kept it together and suggested maybe making it a bit more obvious next time instead of giving up entirely.

Fitz blushed and dropped his hand to his lap where it tangled with its counterpart. "Yeah," he confirmed as he stared down at their dance.

"Then you've got nothing to worry about," Mack said reassuringly, clapping him on the shoulder again.

Fitz shrugged again and smiled. "I hhhope not," he admitted.

"Besides," Mack winked. "From the looks of things, Simmons is more than a little bit interested."

Fitz blinked and raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Hhhow did, I mean _do_ , you knnnow?" he asked.

"Forgetting something in her room?" Mack said, his tone heavy with implication. "That she needs _your help_ to find?" He tried to suppress his grin and turned back to his sandwich to save Fitz the embarrassment. "While she's not wearing a bra?"

"Mack!" Fitz gasped and jumped up from his stool to swat him on the arm.

"Hey now!" Mack raised his hands in defense and chuckled. "I'm a spy! I'm supposed to be observant!"

"Yes, well," Fitz crossed his arms over his stomach and pouted, cocking one hip. "Don't."

"Alright, alright," Mack backed off.

Fitz sat back down with a small huff of annoyance.

"But..." Mack said, looking at him out of the corner of his eye.

"But?" Fitz asked, returning the look.

"If you want some more tips about, y'know..." Mack lifted his eyebrows and met Fitz's eyes meaningfully.

Fitz looked back blankly for a moment. Then it registered. His entire face flushed pink and his eyes widened almost comically large. "Oh!" he said with a gasp. "I..." his mouth opened and closed a few times and he looked a little bit lost. "I don't..."

"It's just that," Mack continued kindly. "Usually when a woman is trying that hard to get a man's attention, that man doesn't come out to the kitchen five minutes later."

Fitz's face was an agony of conflicting emotions, most of them some form of mortified.

"Don't worry about it, Turbo," he smiled. "Just remember what we talked about before, and you'll be fine."

"Wwwhat we talked about be-before," Fitz nodded with a large gulp. "Rrright."

"And I'll keep Hunter so busy he won't even notice you're gone." At least, that was the plan.

Fitz nodded again, distractedly this time. "Good," he said vaguely. "That's.... yeah," he stumbled slightly as he slid off the stool. "I'll just..." he jabbed a thumb behind him.

Mack chuckled to himself as Fitz wandered out of the room, hopefully to review the copious notes he'd taken during their last "talk."

Look at his empty plate, he reached for the bread. Maybe just one more. For the road.


	19. Fitz as Jemma

Fitz checked his cell phone one more time to make sure that the notes he'd made in Bobbi's chart were exactly what Jemma had told him to write, and then he signed her name to the bottom of it. Thank god for all of those times at the Academy when Jemma had let him use her dining card. He'd gotten quite proficient at signing her name, and it seemed he could still manage it with more than just a passing aptitude.

Still holding his phone, he took snapshots of all of the monitors as well as of Bobbi herself and quickly sent them over to Jemma. As he waited for any further instructions, he tidied up Bobbi's bedside table. A pile of magazines had spilled over onto the floor and taken a bar of chocolate and a get well card with it. He was just considering pocketing the KitKat when Bobbi opened her eyes.

"Jemma," she smiled sleepily. "Hi."

"Hi," Fitz smiled back a bit nervously. He hastily placed the candy on top of the magazines, lining it up carefully parallel to their edges in order to avoid meeting Bobbi's eyes. "How are you feeling?" he asked, trying to keep Jemma's accent instructions in mind. His R's were still too hard and his vowels a bit too rounded, but otherwise it was... better? Maybe?

Bobbi cleared her throat and reached up to wipe her eyes. Unfortunately, the hand she used was the one with the IV taped to it. Groaning out a small sigh, she used her other hand instead. "You tell me," she rasped.

Fitz's phone beeped and he smiled an apology as he read Jemma's message. "Aside from thirsty," he said, pouring her a glass of water from the pitcher by her bed and then handing it to her. "You're really in very good shape." He shrank back slightly from her sarcastic expression. "Considering," he amended.

"You're the expert," Bobbi said, staring down at the large lump under the blanket where her thoroughly bandaged knee lay.

Fitz recognized that expression. He'd seen it in the mirror enough times over the last year. Reaching out a kind hand, he squeezed her shoulder briefly.

Bobbi quickly met his eyes and just as quickly looked away again. "I don't need your pity," she said bluntly. "I need a good knee."

"You need _time_ ," Fitz corrected her gently.

"We don't _have_ time," Bobbi argued, pushing herself up in the bed. Frustration was written all over her face.

"We'll _make_ some," Fitz said insistently. "Doctor's orders," he added, his serious expression soon breaking into a grin.

Bobbi quirked her lips together in the expression she usually saved for Hunter. "You're not a doctor," she pointed out.

"I've got a PhD," Fitz said quite reasonably. Then he remembered who he was. " _Two_ , in fact."

"Fine," Bobbi rolled her eyes, and the smile that before had tugged at the corners of her mouth was now making itself seen. "You're not a _medical_ doctor."

Fitz shrugged and plumped her pillow for her before urging her to lie back. "You don't know what I do in my free time."

Bobbi smirked and snorted softly.

"What?" Fitz asked with a slight frown.

"Even on drugs, I can tell when something's up," Bobbi said confidently. "And _you_ , Jemma Simmons," she pointed at his nose. "Have something up."

Fitz started guiltily. Did Bobbi know? But _how_ could Bobbi know. It's not like exchanging bodies with someone were a common occurrence. At least, not outside of children's books and sci-fi movies.

"What do you mean?" Fitz hedged. He'd picked up that much from her at least. Always get the mark to reveal what they knew before you told them anything.

"You and Fitz were both acting funny when you were in here before," Bobbi said, squinting at him. "And you're still acting all weird and nervous."

Fitz tried very hard indeed not to shift on his feet. He gripped her bedsheets to keep his hands from pulling on his ear or rubbing the back of his neck, both tells that Jemma had warned him about. He couldn't keep his eyes from sliding away from Bobbi's however, and as soon as they did, he knew she had him.

"Aha!" Bobbi said triumphantly. "You _are_ hiding something!"

Fitz moved his hands up to grip the sides of his neck, pushing his hair behind his ears on the way. Now, how did Jemma...? He arched his eyebrows up and _out_ somehow, wrinkling his forehead while simultaneously widening his eyes in dismay. Hopefully the whole process didn't look too animatronic. It was a bugger to try to copy someone else's facial expressions. Although he had to admit that doing it with their face on did make it somewhat easier.

"Spill," Bobbi said, leaning forward again.

"Spill what?" Daisy asked from the doorway. She was carrying a food tray and had a tablet trapped between her bicep and her chest.

"Jemma's hiding something about Fitz," Bobbi said over Fitz's protests that there was nothing _to_ spill.

"Oh my god!" Daisy said, face filling with excitement. She quickly slid the tray onto Bobbi's swing table and pushed Bobbi's good leg over on the mattress so that she could perch on the bed. "Did you ask him out?" she asked with baited breath. "Did _he_ ask _you_ out?" She gasped and pressed one hand to her throat. "Did you _kiss_?"

Bobbi had been watching his face carefully throughout Daisy's spontaneous grilling and she barked out a laugh. "That last one was a definite yes," she said, lifting one hand in the international gesture for requesting a high five.

Daisy delivered.

Fitz blushed and tried to figure out how to gracefully exit.

"So is he any good?" Daisy asked, clearly eager for juicy gossip.

"What?" Fitz asked weakly.

"Fitz!" Daisy clarified. "Is he a good kisser?"

On the one hand, Fitz knew Jemma wasn't the type to kiss and tell. On the other hand, how often did this sort of opportunity come along?

"I really shouldn't say," he said coolly. He waited a beat, and then he gave a small nod and an even smaller smile.

"Yes!" Daisy whooped.

"About _time_ ," Bobbi grinned.

"So when's the date?" Daisy asked. "And where? And what are you going to wear?" Her smile turned particularly devious. "And are you gonna bang him?"

Fitz's eyes widened in shock. This was _not_ what he had expected girl talk to be like. He'd expected sighs and poetic descriptions of eyes and feelings and things. Not questions about kissing ability and whether or not there'd be sex.

"Jemma?" Jemma said from the doorway. When Bobbi and Daisy stared at her the way the proverbial cat stared at the canary, she shifted uncomfortably and pulled her cardigan a little bit closer over her chest. "Daisy, Bobbi," she said, giving them each an uneasy nod.

They shared a mischievous look with each other and then turned back to Jemma, crooning, "Fitz" in their sweetest tones.

"Jemma, I need you for a minute?" she said, looking at him a bit desperately.

Feeling rather desperate himself at that moment, Fitz nodded and rose quickly to his feet. "Of course," he said. He was stopped from leaving by Daisy grabbing his hand and pulling him back with a whisper.

"At least tell us _when_?" she asked.

Fitz bit his bottom lip for a second, wishing he had a better poker face. "Tonight," he answered. Then he pulled his hand free and made his escape.

They were barely out the door when the raucous laughter started. He shuddered to think what they might be talking about _now_.


	20. Jemma as Fitz | Fitz as Jemma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm writing this chapter in both points of view, simultaneously. Jemma's version of the chapter is in the left-hand column and Fitz's is in the right. You can choose to read them in series or in parallel. Whatever works better for you :D

Jemma stared at Fitz where he was bent over his laptop, attempting to fix the connection issues they were experiencing. Out of habit, he'd put on one of his own cardigans to guard against the lab's chill. She blinked her prickly eyes rapidly a few times to clear them and tried not to think about how long it had been since she'd seen her own arms poked through his sleeves like that. 

She looked down at the cuffs of her navy button up, poking out of the grey woolen jumper and pulled her hands inside until just her fingers were showing. Her thumbs slipped through the holes by the cuff buttons, and her elbows bent and brought her hands up to her chest. She'd seen Fitz do it countless times, starting back in their Academy days, but before his... _injury_ last year, she'd forgotten he'd ever had the habit.

And now here _she_ was, using his coping mechanism to try to assuage her own nervousness and uncertainty.

It helped.

Taking a deep breath, she turned back to her own monitor. She checked in one more time on Bobbi's vitals before flipping back over to the monolith data that she'd collected. It was still pathetically little information, even with the increased sensor input from Fitz's modifications, and she once more cursed the fact that she wasn't allowed to take samples.

Really, if they wanted her to figure out what the blasted thing _was_ and what it could do, they shouldn't tie her hands by disallowing her access to the object itself. What harm could a few scrapings cause?

Her umbrage dissipated almost as soon as it had arisen, and she looked over at Fitz one more time.

Right. _That_ harm.

At least she knew one thing the monolith could do?

She chuckled quietly to herself.

"What's that?" Fitz asked, looking up from his stooped over position. As he stood up, he pressed both his hands to the small of his back. She really wished he'd stop doing that. People were going to get the wrong idea.

"Oh, nothing," she said dismissively, waving a hand. Fitz shrugged and moved to turn back to his computer, but she didn't really want him to, yet.

"It's just..." she started hesitantly. How in the world was she supposed to start this conversation? She was so bad at this. So very bad. Notoriously bad.

She briefly pictured her own wanted poster with the charge of "Terrible At Expressing Emotions" underneath her mug shot.

He looked back at her again, turning side-on to his laptop so that she knew she had his full attention.

"Just...?" he asked when she didn't finish.

Now she had to figure out what to do with it.

"I was th-thinking..." Jemma started again slowly, closing her eyes when she couldn't stop herself from stuttering. She brought her arms in toward her chest again and wrapped her fingers tight around her shirt cuffs.

"Did you...?" Fitz asked, clearing his throat, and Jemma kept her eyes closed so that she could imagine his face instead of seeing her own. "Is it about tonight?"

Her eyes popped open in surprise. "No!" she said immediately. "Wait. Wh-what about t-t-tonight?"

She squinted at him suspiciously. She knew he wasn't entirely comfortable with them dating in their current situation, but they'd gone over things and agreed.

"Nothing!" Fitz said quickly, taking two steps over to her before pausing awkwardly. "It's just, you..." he stopped, mouth still pursed over the final vowel.

"I...?" Jemma asked, looking down while lifting her eyebrows up.

She watched him lick his lips and shift his eyes, and she knew she wasn't going to get the real answer. Not now, at least.

"Bobbi and S- _Daisy_ were saying some, uh, _things_ ," he said.

Jemma felt herself blush and tried not to look as embarrassed as she felt.

"Oh?" she said innocently. She felt her adrenaline kick in and remembered May's advice for dealing with an enemy agent. Sometimes the best defense was a good offense. "M-Mack and Hunter s-s-said a few 'things' as w-w-well," she said, lifting her chin and trying to brazen it out.

"Did they?" Fitz asked, for all the world as if he didn't care a jot.

Damn him.

Jemma crossed her arms over her chest and gritted her teeth, giving him her best 'spill the beans' stare.

She held it for almost a solid minute, but he didn't seem to be breaking at all. Either he'd toughened up considerably in the past year, or these sad little puppy dog eyes weren't nearly as scary as her own.

She shrugged internally. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

She scrunched her mouth up in a frustrated pout when he turned back to his laptop. She really needed to get her own face back.

Fitz picked up his laptop as cool as you like and then turned to her as if nothing were amiss. "I'm going to go back to the monolith room to see if it's a hardware problem on that end. Want to come with?"

How dare he change the topic like that? If she had her own face and her own ability to _talk_ , he wouldn't get away with that.

Locking her workstation with a few angry keystrokes, Jemma nodded firmly. "Of course," she said in her best professional tone.

And then she was going to go back to her room and practice until she could _make_ Fitz's face behave.

|      | 

Fitz tried very hard indeed not to look over at where Jemma was working on interpreting the sensor data on the monolith. It wasn't as if looking at her would satisfy him at all, anyway, because he wouldn't see _her,_ he'd just see his own stupid face _again._

He'd never really thought his face was anything other than a serviceable enough cover for the front of his skull until it was right there in front of him every time he turned around.

He wondered if Jemma would be at all willing to pin a small mirror to her lapel. He'd feel a bit more normal talking to his current reflection than he did talking to her with that face on.

He shuddered and pulled his cardigan a bit closer.

He'd put it on out of habit. The lab was always cool, and now that he was in Jemma's body, he found it halfway to freezing most of the time. It was nice, though. Comforting in a way, having at least that much of himself back again.

And he'd be lying if he said that he hadn't missed seeing Jemma in his jumper.

But that was neither here nor there.

He breathed deep and forced himself to focus on the problem at hand. For some reason, none of his cameras were currently broadcasting data, and even the secondary sensor array that he'd installed seemed to be tracking only intermittently. He'd run every diagnostic he could on the equipment, but nothing seemed to be amiss. There was probably some incredibly obvious problem he was missing, but he couldn't see it for the life of him.

With a quiet sigh, he admitted to himself that he probably wasn't going to get anywhere with this if he couldn't bring in Skye. _Daisy_.

Damnit. He'd been doing so well with that, too!

Jemma chuckled quietly behind him, and he had a momentary, irrational thought that she'd read his mind.

"What's that?" he asked, standing up. He winced at the pain in his lower back and cursed his uterus for the thousandth time that day. The hot bath had helped, but not for long, and now his only relief was to apply pressure to the ache.

"Oh, nothing," Jemma said with a wave.

He shrugged his acceptance. Over their years of working together, they'd learned that sometimes what one of them found funny the other one found to be distinctly lacking in comedy.

"It's just..." she continued.

He looked back at her expectantly, waiting for the punchline. She probably had to figure out the best phrasing first.

"Just...?" he encouraged.

He fervently hoped that his own poker face was better than Jemma's because he was watching emotions cross his face one after another, as clear to understand as if they had subtitles.

Nervous. Hopeful. Worried. Determined. This did not bode well for him.

"I was thinking..." she started. And then she stopped and closed her eyes, and Fitz wondered if she had changed her mind about this whole 'date' idea.

"Did you," he cleared his throat and looked down at the toes of his boots, unconsciously pulling the long sleeves of his cardigan down over his hands. "Is it about tonight?" he asked, not wanting to look up but doing it anyway.

"No!" Jemma said, looking at him with such surprise that he felt relief wash over him. That was good, at least. "Wait. What about tonight?" she continued, and now he was pinned with her interrogation stare, and he had no idea how she was managing to give it to him from his own face.

"Nothing!" Fitz tried backtrack hastily. Oh shit. He'd really stepped in it now. "It's just, you..." You looked like you had bad news? You probably wish you hadn't said yes? You've decided you want to try my penis out on someone other than yourself?

"I...?" Jemma asked, clearly wanting him to finish his sentence.

Fitz licked his lips and tried to think of something to say.

"Bobbi and S- _Daisy_ were saying some, uh," he searched for an adjective and was unable to come up with anything appropriate. "Things," he finished lamely. He felt himself shrivel inside a little bit. That was _not_ the way to change the topic.

"Oh?" Jemma asked. Her voice was unconcerned, but his eyes narrowed at the sight of her blush. Just _what_ had she been saying about him to the two of them?

"Mack and Hunter said a few things as well," she continued.

Fitz felt himself break out in goose flesh.

"Did they?" he asked, heart in his throat.

Fitz watched a bit jealously as Jemma crossed her arms over her chest. He still couldn't seem to manage it at all comfortably.

At least he didn't find his own face as intimidating as he found hers. Maybe it was the eyebrows.

He let her keep it up for almost a full minute before he turned away with a small smile. He'd never successfully stood against that look before.

His face or not, this still counted.

Closing his laptop, he slid it under his arm and turned back to Jemma solicitously.

"I'm going to go back to the monolith room to see if it's a hardware problem on that end," he explained. "Want to come with?"

"Of course," Jemma answered after locking her workstation. She was using the crisp, efficient, borderline perky voice she always used when she was pissed at him. Or when she was dealing with particularly foul attendees at conferences.

Maybe he shouldn't have been _quite_ so unaffected by the glare?  
  
---|---|---  
  
**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So? What do we think of this formatting thing? Effective or terrible?


	21. Jemma as Fitz

Jemma ground her teeth together and wished she could get a really good frown going with Fitz's forehead, but it was no use. She glanced at her reflection in the window of a door as they walked down the corridor and shook her head in resignation. It just didn't wrinkle the way it should.

Fitz was jabbering on about the various technical issues they were experiencing and the attempts he'd made to solve them, but all Jemma could focus on was clenching and unclenching her left hand. It just wouldn't stop shaking, and she had no idea _why_. In the past 24 hours (had it really only been 24 hours?) of being Fitz, it had never been this bad.

She had observed for herself that the trembling and spasming was at its worst when Fitz was especially emotional, and she tried to decide if that's what were happening here.

Unfortunately, when it came to emotions, she was far from an expert.

She was annoyed with Fitz, she knew that much. With his ridiculous face that couldn't seem to glower. With his penis that, no matter what she did, always seemed to be _moving_ when she walked. With his total lack of curiosity about what Mack and Hunter might have been saying to her, and the vague statement that Bobbi and Daisy had said " _things_." She was annoyed that he wouldn't take her advice about the cramps and said that taking a bath would be enough. Annoyed that he'd _walked around the base without a bra on._ Annoyed that he'd reassured her that his program would find a solution, only to tell her that the solution would take a month! And then that the program wasn't working at all!

With a list like _that_ , no wonder her hand was shaking.

She took another deep breath and tried to calm herself down. Getting all worked up over things wasn't any use, anyway, so she should just accept things the way they were and try to move on with solving the problem.

"... ask Sk-Daisy to help out with the connection, if nothing else works," he was saying.

"D-d-do you think th-that's w-w-"  She squinted her eyes shut tight as she struggled to find the word she wanted. It was right there on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't graps it. "A good idea?" she finally asked. Her hand twitched at her side again. There was rather a large item that she'd left off her list, and she felt a hot pool of guilt in her stomach as she couldn't help thinking of it now.

She was incredibly, uselessly, guiltily frustrated by Fitz's aphasia.

"Well, we don't have to tell her _why_ ," Fitz said reasonably.

Jemma pressed her lips together and nodded. She kept quiet, less in agreement and more because she didn't want to hear herself talk.

She tried not to think about it. Just keep on as if it weren't that big a deal. But the problem was that it _was_ a big deal, and she had no idea how to talk to him about it.

"Anyway," Fitz continued as he turned the corner in the hallway. "We won't have to worry about that until-" He stopped short, both his words and his movement, and Jemma ran right into him.

"Fitz?" she asked, adding 'not looking where he was going' to his list of offenses.

Fitz nodded at the door to the monolith room, its green panels now criss-crossed with yellow caution tape.

"Jemma?" he asked, turning his head towards her but keeping his eyes focused on the door.

"W-what's...?" Jemma trailed off as footsteps approached behind them.

"Fitzsimmons," Coulson said crisply, and they looked at each other before turning to face him. "I've been eagerly anticipating your report." He slid his right hand casually into his pocket and looked at them expectantly.

"R-report?" Jemma asked weakly. She quickly stuffed her hands in her pockets so that Coulson wouldn't see her shaking.

"What report, sir?" Fitz asked, and Jemma sincerely hoped that Coulson wouldn't notice the fact that her accent had migrated northward overnight.

Coulson regarded them both calmly for a moment. "The one I need to read before anyone goes into that room ever again," he said simply.


	22. Coulson

Coulson clenched his teeth together for a moment and waited for the itchiness in his left hand to recede. It crept up on him any time he let his mind wander, and it was driving him a bit nuts.

He looked down at the sling strapped to his chest and the stump that his arm now ended in.

How did you scratch an itch that didn't exist outside of your head?

Probably the same way you stopped dreaming about your arm turning to stone.

He glanced up at the axe on his wall for a moment before turning back to his paperwork. ~~Skye~~ _Daisy_ had been trying to get him to go paperless ever since he'd taken over as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., but he found having stacks of paper files on his desk comforting. Each one of those files represented someone or something that he was tracking, and flipping through them regularly helped him make sure he wasn't _losing track_ of any of them.

And if that made him a 'cantankerous, old-fashioned Luddite' then so be it.

He smiled to himself. Not many Luddites out there who'd have a genius engineer making them a robot hand, were there?

He _really_ hoped Fitz'd manage to make that laser finger. How cool would that be?

Closing the file he had open in front of him and adding it to one of the piles on his desk, he pulled his remote over to him and flipped on his screen. He wasn't _technically_ due for an update on the hand until the end of the week, but if he could happen to casually _run into_ Fitz...

He flipped through the camera feeds until he found him in the monolith room talking to Simmons.

It was good to see the two of them talking again, even if this conversation seemed to be almost painfully awkward. Coulson winced as he watched it unfold. Now might not be the best time to-

He watched in shock as the monolith burst out of its containment and enveloped both scientists at once. He was on his feet in a split second and if he'd had two hands, he'd have been out the door just as quickly. Instead, however, his gun got caught up in his holster because it was pinned down by his sling and by the time he got both his good hand and his firearm free, Fitz and Simmons were back where they'd been a moment before.

He panted a bit from his struggle and squinted at the screen in confusion. They were hurrying to lock up the container again, but other than that, they seemed fine. A little shaken up, but fine.

He sank back into his chair and settled his gun carefully on his desk. They really needed to find out what the hell that monolith _did_.

And he also needed get Daisy wiring those cameras for sound.

* * *

Coulson frowned in thought as he watched FitzSimmons go into Simmson's quarters together. 

He'd watched enough classic Star Trek episodes to know that alien artifacts sometimes had unusual effects on humans.

Hell, he'd _experienced_ enough unusual effects from alien artifacts to know that.

He scratched absentmindedly at his sling as he pondered the security footage.

He'd been watching them ever since their little accident in the monolith room, and something was definitely up. He might not be the best lip reader in the world, but he could pick out the words "Jemma" and "Fitz" with a fair degree of reliability, and they were being said by the wrong person.

Unless the monolith suddenly made them speak in the third person?

He shook his head. Nah.

* * *

They were inseparable. 

Maybe the monolith had created some sort of bond between the two of them and they couldn't be apart for more than a certain amount of time?

Or maybe they were back to being FitzSimmons.

He allowed himself a small smile at the thought. He certainly _hoped_ they'd figure things out, and not just because he needed their combined expertise on this inhuman problem.

He watched them enter Simmons' quarters again.

What if it was some sort of sex pollen situation? Like Spock and Leila in _This Side of Paradise_?

He shook his head at the thought. Simmons would quarantine them before something like that happened.

Although... He couldn't help noticing that neither one of them had mentioned what had happened yet. That wasn't like them at all.

What if the monolith were exerting some sort of Kree influence on them?

What if they were pod people?

He watched carefully as Fitz left Simmons' room and fell into conversation with Hunter. Everything there seemed normal enough.

What was going on with them?

* * *

"A fact-finding mission in Vegas?" Coulson asked, looking at Hunter in mild disbelief. 

"Yes, sir," Hunter nodded firmly. His hands were buried in his pockets as he bounced on his toes, and Coulson knew bullshit when he smelled it.

"For what facts?" he asked, curiously.

"Oh, y'know," Hunter shrugged. "I heard there was a guy down there reading minds. Thought it sounded inhuman."

"Is that right?" Coulson asked mildly.

"And Mack thinks it's a good idea, too," Hunter put in. He nodded toward the file on Coulson's desk. "See? He's coming with."

"I do see that, yes," Coulson nodded.

"Excellent," Hunter grinned. "I'll go pack my bags."

Coulson watched him go and shook his head slowly. He'd brought him in here to find out if Fitz was acting normally and had ended up with a request for a funded road trip. Of course.

* * *

Enough was enough. If they weren't going to come to him, he was going to go to them. 

Coulson ripped the last piece of caution tape a bit awkwardly with his teeth and surveyed his handiwork. It obviously wasn't going to do a thing to actually keep anyone from entering, but it _should_ be enough to make FitzSimmons come to him with some questions.

Questions that he'd be returning with more than a few of his own.

A conversation around the corner warned him that someone was coming, and he slipped into the shadows to see who it was.

FitzSimmons.

Except Fitz was calling Simmons 'Fitz' and Simmons was calling Fitz 'Jemma.'

His eyes widened as another sci-fi reference came to mind.

Freaky Friday?

Schooling his features into calmness, he slunk out of the shadows and let them hear his approach.

"FitzSimmons," he said, watching them carefully as they both looked simultaneously guilty and fearful. "I've been eagerly anticipating your report."


	23. Fitz as Jemma

_That evening..._

Fitz smiled at Jemma across the restaurant table. It was a slightly worried smile, and he hoped she couldn't tell. Things didn't seem to be going as well as he'd hoped back when he'd finally asked her out.

Again.

Fifth time lucky?

Except not really because she might have said yes, but they'd ended up like _this_.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and wished he hadn't let Daisy talk him into wearing a dress.

At least he'd put his foot down about the tights. He'd never shaved his legs before, and he wasn't planning on trying it when his hands were shaking with nerves. It was tights or trousers, and that's all there was to it.

He felt a guilty twinge that it was nice to just shake when he was nervous for a change.

Clearing his throat, he bowed his head and scratched the back of his neck and up under his hair. Then he looked up at Jemma, and she looked as awkward as he felt.

"S'a nice place, isn't it?" he tried, looking around the restaurant and desperately wishing he could think of something to talk about besides the elephant in the room.

 _God_ , if only there actually _were_ an elephant in the room. At least _then_ they'd have something to talk about!

"Mmhmm," Jemma nodded into her wine glass. She was trying not to look at him, and he didn't think it was for the same reason that he was having a hard time looking at her.

Is that _really_ how she wanted him to dress for a date?

Where had she even _found_ that jacket? And she must have reached right the way back to the back of his closet to find trousers that tight. And tucking in his shirt!

He supposed he should be making notes about this sort of thing, except that after _this_ disaster, he doubted they'd go on another date ever again.

Their salads arrived, interrupting the stilted silence, and he stabbed his a bit harder than necessary with his fork.

Why wasn't she _talking_?

If she were _that_ uncomfortable with the idea of having dinner with him, then why on earth had she said yes in the first place?

Was this a pity date?

The strawberry vinaigrette Jemma had insisted he'd like soured on his tongue as he chewed a cherry tomato. "Maybe there _isn't_ ," he muttered to himself as he stabbed another forkful of lettuce.

"P-p-p-pardon?" Jemma asked, and he watched her wince as she stuttered the word out. Her hand tightened on her fork, and she reached for another glass of wine.

Clearly, this was the _last_ place she wanted to be right now.

Fitz sighed in resignation and did the only thing he could think of to salvage the conversation. He started talking about work.

"It was good of Coulson to give us the night," he said neutrally. "Try to get things," he breathed in and cleared his throat again, "sorted out."

Jemma nodded, looking rather miserable. "B-b-but t-tomorrow," she said weakly.

"Yeah," Fitz nodded glumly.

He wasn't looking forward to telling the team any more than she was. They were going to end up dead from either a beating or embarrassment, and it was anyone's guess which one it would be.

Who was he kidding? It was definitely going to be embarrassment.

... Assuming of course, this _date_ didn't kill him first.

Jemma pushed her salad around her plate without really eating it.

"Sorry," Fitz apologized with a nod to her appetizer. "I usually like Thousand Island."

Jemma smiled and shrugged before taking a bite. "Mmm," she nodded as she chewed. "D-d-deli... _good_ ," she said after she swallowed. She looked a bit sick, though.

Fitz sighed and wiped his mouth gingerly with his serviette before folding the cloth and putting it on the table.

"Look, Jemma," he said seriously. "If you'd rather we just called this whole thing off..." He let his words trail off and hoped that the massive lump in his throat wasn't actually visible.

Her eyes widened and she shook her head vehemently. "N-no!" she said, and he was a bit surprised with the force of it. "It's n-not _th-that_ ," she said a bit desperately. "I-" Her eyes pleaded with him to understand, but he had no idea what else could be happening.

"You?" he asked, his face a puzzle of confusion.

She stared at him as the wait staff cleared their salad plates and placed their entrees in front of them, and he waited patiently for them to leave so that she'd finish her sentence. When she just continued to stare, he found himself at a loss.

"Jemma?" he asked, hoping for some sort of direction from her. "What do-" he stopped as she raised a finger to request that he wait. And then it was his turn to stare as she took out her phone. "Jemma?" he asked again, not quite believing what he was seeing. She had a strict 'no phones at social meals' rule, so the fact that she was breaking it was tantamount to her standing on the table and shouting obscenities.

She typed out a text and then looked at him again, this time apologetically.

What in the world was going on?

And then his purse buzzed and Jemma pressed her lips together in a thin, humourless smile as she nodded towards it.

He had no idea how to feel as he took out his phone and read her message.

He blinked as he read it, his chest tightening in sympathy and his stomach unclenching in relief.

"Well then," he said, and his voice felt husky with emotion. "I'll just have to do enough talking for the both of us."

Jemma blinked rapidly, and his chest constricted further as he saw the tears in her eyes. But then she smiled, genuinely smiled, and everything was alright again.

His phone buzzed again in his hand, and he glanced down at it.

"You're welcome," he grinned.

And then he reached for the bottle of wine and refilled her glass.


	24. Jemma as Fitz

Jemma bounced her head a few times on the pillow and wished for the second night in a row that she were sleeping in her own, soft bed rather than Fitz's harder one. A firm mattress might be good for the lumbar region, but she missed the feeling of sleeping in a cloud. Even now, she would sometimes imagine, like when she was a little girl, that she was a magical princess falling asleep in the sky.

Still, she smiled to herself as Fitz shifted a bit closer, there _were_ benefits to this particular sleeping arrangement.

"Fitz?" she whispered quietly, and it was odd to hear her words in that sleepy rumble. She'd never thought of Fitz's voice as being especially deep before, but now that it was reverberating within her own skull it seemed lower than she was used to. One more oddity to add to the never-ending list of strangeness this whole experience was creating.

"Mmm?" Fitz mumbled, squeezing his arms a bit tighter around her waist and nuzzling into the back of her neck. It tickled her every time he breathed out, but she'd had to do a fair bit of convincing before he'd let her be the little spoon and she wasn't about to let that effort go to waste by complaining.

Taking her time, she built her sentence in her head before she spoke and kept her breathing slow and even to stay as relaxed as possible. "Are you awake?" she asked. Even asking the question and getting a response was no guarantee. She'd had entire conversations with him before when he'd been mostly-asleep and when she referenced them later, he'd had no memory of them at all.

She was trying to decide whether she wanted him to remember this one or not.

"Mmmyup," he murmured. "Tot'ly 'wake."

With an answer like that, she had 50/50 odds.

Reaching down, she threaded her fingers between Fitz's and pulled their clasped hands up to her chest.

"I'm sorry we're stuck like this," she said after another long pause to gather her thoughts.

"Mmmm, me too," Fitz agreed, nodding against her shoulder.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She could do this.

The butterflies in her stomach disagreed somewhat, but she pushed them down.

Concentrating again, she forced herself to keep going. "But I'm not sorry it happened."

Fitz nodded again. " 'Course not," he agreed.

In the pause that followed while Jemma gathered her thoughts, he shifted his position away from her slightly and pulled her towards him so she was mostly on her back. Jemma looked up at his confusion-creased face and watched him trying to piece the puzzle together.

"Wait," he said groggily. "Why?" He squinted one eye open to look at her and closed it almost immediately when the light streaming in under the door from the hallway outside was too bright for him.

Jemma rolled fully onto her back and pulled Fitz down to rest half on her chest. She looked down at her own head resting on Fitz's body's shoulder, cheek pressed into cotton tshirt, hand splayed over heart, and she felt an irrational moment of jealousy that her body was able to experience this moment before _she_ was. She'd been thinking of curling up with Fitz like this for longer that she could even consciously remember, and now that it was finally happening, everything was backwards.

 _And_ she was getting an erection when she was _trying_ to have a serious conversation.

Good lord, would the thing _never_ stay down?

All of the nervous energy from their date and their goodnight kiss and their decision to sleep (just sleep!) together seemed to be rushing directly to her newly acquired penis, and she try as she might to will it away, it was no use.

Necropsy.

Vaughn in a speedo.

The scene with the ruptured boil from that movie Hunter made her watch.

Jemma made a thoroughly disgusted face but was relieved when the tent in her pajama bottoms started to relax.

She'd always sort of laughed at the idea, but it seemed that getting an erection really _did_ make it difficult to concentrate.

She took a quick, determined breath and pressed her lips together as she gathered her words together again. She needed to _focus_ just now. No more distractions!

"Because now I know," she began slowly, pausing to search for the next phrase.

"Know what?" Fitz asked, clasping her hand again. He still sounded half-asleep, and she hoped now that he would remember this in the morning because she didn't know if she'd be brave enough to say it again.

"What you needed from me when I-" she sucked in a shaky breath and forced herself to continue. "I _l-l-left_." She squeezed her eyes shut tight again and focused on her breathing. Calm. She had to stay calm or she'd never get the words out.

"Needed _you_ ," Fitz sighed into her shoulder, barely audible.

"I n-n-need y-you t-t-t-too," she whispered back.

The only answer she got back this time were the soft snores she'd always refused to believe she made as Fitz fell finally asleep in her arms.

"I need you too," she breathed out again, wrapping her arm a bit tighter around his shoulders.

Not long after that, her heartbeat slowed down to match his, and she followed him into a deep sleep.


	25. Fitz as Jemma | Hunter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fitz's POV is on the left, Hunter's is on the right.  
> This one is probably best read in parallel rather than in series. You'll see why pretty much immediately.

  |   | 

Hunter slapped the swinging doors in the hallway with enough force that they bounced back and almost hit him in the face.

"No Vegas?!" he half-shouted, feeling somewhere between disappointed and furious. "How's the lad supposed to bloody well get over her if he can't get drunk and see strippers?"

He pounded his way through another set of double doors, once more managing to avoid personal injury, but only just.

"Not worth getting bent out of shape over," he muttered under his breath in a poor imitation of Mack's basso profondo.

"How's he supposed to get bent out of shape?" he asked a passing ops agent, "If I can't introduce him to that lovely contortionist I met last time?"

The agent swam in and out of focus for a moment before shrugging her shoulders. "You got me," she admitted.

"Oh, _do_ I?" Hunter asked, leaning one hand against the wall and waggling his eyebrows.

At least, that's what he _meant_ to do.

Unfortunately, he'd had perhaps just _one_ beer too many and wasn't as able to judge distances as he usually was.

He managed to catch himself before completely falling over, and gave the agent a nod before continuing down the hallway.

He was a man on a mission.  
  
---|---|---  
  
 

Fitz groaned in his sleep an flung out an arm to fight off the noise that was dragging him into consciousness, but unfortunately, no physical movement could stop that horrid pounding.

Or the even worse shouting.

 

Moaning in a complaining breath, he rolled out of bed and onto his feet.

"Mmm coming," he mumbled groggily, head lolling on his chest and eyes still closed. "Keep your shirt on."

|   | 

Hunter pounded on Fitz's door as if his life depended on it. "Fitz!" he shouted, trying to wake him up.

What kind of a friend would he be if he didn't do everything in his power to get Fitz to Vegas in his hour of emotional need?

Not a very good one, that's what kind.

He redoubled his efforts at rousing him, determined to take the poor boy away from the site of his heartache to a place where it was quite possibly _illegal_ to be sad.

He hoped he still had that contortionist's number.  
  
Fitz padded over to his door and flung it open. Even with his eyes shut, the light from the hallway was glaring, so he squinted them even tighter and flung up a hand to cover them.

" _What_ in the name of all that's _holy_ -" he began.

But then he felt the still unfamiliar brush of hair against the back of his hand, and he froze.

Oh shit.

"Simmons?" Hunter asked, and Fitz wished fervently that the monolith would suddenly appear and suck him up inside it again. Maybe transport him to another planet or something instead.

Anything would be better than this moment.

|   | 

Hunter was all set to launch into his plan for an off-book Vegas adventure when the door opened and revealed the last person he expected to see standing on the threshold in nothing but a tshirt.

" _What_ in the name of all that's _holy_ -" she blustered as she struggled in the bright light of the base's corridor.

 

"Simmons?" he said with more than a little surprise.

Well, this was unexpected.  
  
Fitz swallowed hard as he stared at Hunter, and his brain quickly ran through the events that led up to this moment.

  * Jemma having too much wine with dinner and insisting that they sleep together
  * Arguing over whose room they were going to sleep in
  * Fitz winning the argument, mostly because Jemma let him
  * Jemma not letting him leave to get one of her nightgowns because she'd seen herself naked every day of her life and what did it matter if she saw him now?
  * Fitz still grabbing one of his own shirts for the sake of propriety
  * A bit of judicious making out
  * Arguing over who was the little spoon
  * Jemma trying to talk to him? Maybe?
  * Waking up to pounding on the door and Hunter shouting for him

|   |    
  
 

 

 

 

"Hunter," Fitz said with a false smile and an nervous laugh. "Wh-what can I do for you?"

He tried to surreptitiously slide behind the door.

 

 

"I'm flattered, love. Really," he said, and Fitz _really_ wished he'd put on a pair of boxers or something to sleep in rather than just the shirt. "But I'm a one-on-one sorta man. Mostly."

Fitz remembered any number of grandiose stories Hunter had told him and rolled his eyes. As if any of them were actually _true_.

|    | 

Hunter stared at Simmons while she stared at him. He wasn't entirely certain what was going on here, but judging by her state of undress, he thought he could make a reasonable guess.

His eyes wandered down below her neckline and he raised an appreciative eyebrow.

Well done, Fitz.

"Hunter," she laughed flirtatiously, flashing him a dazzling smile. "What can I do for you?"

And then she opened the door wider to let him in.

Who knew Simmons was _freaky_?

"I'm flattered, love," he said with a broad wink. "Really. But I'm a one-on-one sorta man..." He remembered the _best friends_ he'd met in a hostel in Milan. They'd done everything together.

_Everything_.

"... Mostly," he finished.  
  
"I _meant_ ," Fitz said, trying to remain patient with his obviously inebriated friend. "Why are you knocking on m... _Fitz's_ door at gone past 2am?"

 

"Fitz and I are going to..." he started, and then he seemed to lose the thread of what he was saying.

Fitz made a mental note to ask Mack just how many beers he'd let Hunter drink tonight.

However many it was, it was quite obviously _too many_.

Also obvious was Hunter's complete inability to either stall or think. He managed an "Um" after about 20 seconds and then stood there for 30 more.

Then he waved a slightly manic good night and closed the door.

|   | 

"I meant why are you knocking on Fitz's door at gone past 2am?" she asked, obviously trying to move past the embarrassing moment of rejection.

The poor thing.

"Fitz and I are going to..." he stopped and frowned. Taking Fitz to Vegas to have bendy sex with a contortionist was probably no longer in the cards, now that he thought about it.

"Um," he searched for a reasonable excuse that he could give her that wouldn't reveal what the original plan was, but nothing was coming to mind.

Well. When in doubt, brazen it out.

Standing up straight, he gave Simmons his most winning smile and then offered her a jaunty wave.

"Goodnight!" he said cheerfully. And then he reached out a hand and closed the door.  
  
Fitz blinked at the suddenly shut door and stood there for a moment in shock. Then he turned back to the bed where Jemma had somehow managed to sleep through the whole thing.

He was _not_ looking forward to the morning.

|    | 

Hunter slouched back toward the lounge where he'd left Mack cleaning up the bottles. Maybe there was still some beer left?

"Vegas," he whined to himself. "I just want to go to Vegas."


	26. May

May allowed herself a small smile as she stood in line for security screening. She couldn't remember the last time she'd flown commercial, and she was more than a little bit amused by the hoops they were making passengers go through.

As if any of these measures were effective.

She rolled her eyes as Andrew slipped off his belt and toed off his shoes, but she followed suit anyway.

Her face remained impassive as she handed over her ticket and ID, walked through the scanner, and collected her belongings from the x-ray bin. She hadn't even caused a blip.

Amateurs.

"You hungry?" Andrew asked, taking her hand in his as they began wandering in the direction of their gate.

"I could eat," she said with a wry grin, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. He always said that he liked to leave for the airport early to allow for traffic, but she knew from experience that when Andrew was on vacation, that vacation started the moment he left work. And vacations didn't include cooking.

"Two smiles in ten minutes," Andrew observed casually, looking around until he spotted a likely restaurant. "If I didn't know better," he looked at her and a smile broke across his face, "I'd say you were _relaxing_."

"Vacations do that to me," she observed in a deadpan voice. At least, she thought they did. She hadn't had a real vacation since before their divorce.

"Just wait til we're on the _beach_ ," Andrew enthused. "Two, please," he indicated to the hostess. "Waves crashing," he said as he followed their server, weaving between tables, pulling his carry-on. "Sun shining." He turned and winked at her just as they reached their table. "You in that bikini..."

"You in that ridiculous shirt," she raised an eyebrow in return as they both sat down. It was still a bit hard to believe that they were here. They were going on vacation together, seeing if they were going to be anything other than ex-spouses to each other.

"Coffee, please," Andrew smiled at their waitress.

"Tea," May ordered. "Earl Grey," she added, turning her cup right side up in its saucer. How in the world had she let her mother convince her that this was a good idea?

"Coming right up," she answered. "You take your time with the menus."

They nodded and opened them up.

"What better place to wear a Hawaiian print shirt than in Hawaii?" Andrew asked reasonably.

May glanced over the menu for a moment, found the breakfasts, selected the one that most closely matched her usual breakfast, and then shut it and placed it on the table in front of her. She looked up at Andrew and watched as he flipped through all of the pages, then flipped back to the front, then checked the back page again.

"Do I want breakfast or lunch?" he mused out loud to himself.

May's face softened slightly, but she kept her comments to herself. When it came to restaurant ordering, Andrew always needed to have a dialogue.

Between himself and his stomach.

"That burger looks great, but this is just day one of our vacation," Andrew continued, laying his menu down on the table and pointing to a picture of a burger that looked larger than her head. May nodded but otherwise remained neutral. There was no way that Andrew was going to order anything with that many calories, but he got a lot of fun out of considering it.

She gave the waitress a very brief smile when she returned with their drinks and asked for another minute with the menus before they placed their order. Then she pushed two creamers across the table to Andrew and started to steep her tea while he continued to weigh the pros and cons of the various dishes that caught his eye.

The waitress came back again, just as Andrew shut his menu. "Perfect timing," he said cheerfully. Then he turned to May with a gesture. "Melinda?" he asked, indicating that she go first.

"Heart Smart platter. Egg whites. English muffin. No hashbrowns," she said, pausing between each part of her order to allow the young woman to write it down.

"Excellent," she said, turning to Andrew with a bright smile. "And for yourself?"

"I think I'm going to pace myself since we're just starting our vacation," Andrew explained. "I don't want to go too crazy before we've even left the airport!" They shared a laugh, and then he picked up his menu and pointed to the item as he ordered. "I'll have the egg white omelette with sundried tomatoes and spinach."

May stopped listening as the two of them got into an in-depth conversation about the various kinds of toast available. Andrew could talk to anyone about anything and the conversation would be fascinating.

That's why she'd married him.

Best not to think about why they'd gotten divorced.

She frowned as her bag vibrated beside her. Her parents wouldn't be calling when they knew she was getting on a flight. Andrew was already with her. That left one person who had her number.

Reaching into her purse, she drew her cellphone out slowly with a feeling of dread while the waitress collected her menu and left.

"What is it?" Andrew asked curiously.

She met his eyes with a blank expression. "Coulson," she said simply. But it was never simple with Coulson. Especially where Andrew was concerned.

"Ah," Andrew said significantly. He sat back in his chair and nodded slowly, lips pursed in consideration. Finally, he looked her in the eyes again. "Are you going to answer?"

May felt her lips tighten up as her nostrils flared and she blinked twice before she answered him. So much for a relaxing vacation.

"He promised he'd only call under extraordinary circumstances," she explained quietly.

Andrew looked unhappy, but waved an open hand indicating that she should pick up.

Still looking at Andrew, she put the phone to her ear. "May," she said. "What do you need?"


	27. Koenig

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all of the props to notapepper for telling me to do this in Koenig's POV

Billy stood just behind Coulson and a bit to the side. He found that to be the best position to be unobtrusive but also optimally responsive to the Director's needs. His tablet was poised and at the ready as he waited for the meeting to start.

"Did we _really_ have to do this first thing?" Hunter asked.

He was wearing sunglasses at 8am in an underground bunker that already had poor lighting.

Billy made a note to provide him with some vitamin supplements and some Tylenol. He glanced at Hunter's sweating, pained face and adjusted his note. Extra strength Tylenol.

"Yes," Coulson nodded, shrugging to try to resettle his sling more comfortably. Billy made a note to adjust the back strap another half inch. "FitzSimmons have a problem, and I need all of you to help them fix it."

All eyes in the room turned to the pair at the end of the table. They were sitting there awkwardly with pained expressions on their faces but didn't seem to be physically ill. He quickly checked his tablet to see if a quarantine had been triggered, but none had.

Hmm. Apparently, the Director had sealed off the monolith room. He made a note to change the pass code on the door every 90 minutes.

"Jemma?" Daisy asked, leaning forward in concern. "Fitz? What's going on?"

Billy listened carefully for the tell-tale rumble of an earthquake and was pleased that not a single glass tinkled on the table. Those seismic adjustments Sam had recommended were working out well.

"They've had a run-in with the monolith," Coulson explained.

Billy nodded to himself. That explained the security measures. He started scanning through the security feed, moving backward from the moment when the Director had sealed the room.

"A run-in?" Mack asked, looking from Coulson to FitzSimmons. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means we..." Jemma started and then broke off and looked pleadingly at Coulson. He nodded back and took over.

"Two days ago," he began. "FitzSimmons were working in the monolith room and," he turned around and Billy gave him a thumbs up. He turned back to the group and gestured at the big screen on the wall behind them. Everyone turned to watch the video Billy brought up. "This happened."

Daisy gasped out a soft, "Oh my god."

Mack leaned his head back and frowned. "What the-?"

Hunter slid his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose and raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Did that thing just _eat_ FitzSimmons?" he asked.

"Simmons has run medical scans on them both, and they're fine," Coulson reassured the room. Billy put the scans up on the screen on the off chance that someone would want to refer to them. "Physically," Coulson finished after a pause.

Billy pulled up Dr. Garner's flight and hotel itinerary on his tablet and ensured that they had both his cell phone and hotel room numbers in case they needed to reach him.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hunter asked, sitting up from his slouched position and taking his feet off the conference table to plant them firmly on the floor.

Billy frowned at the mark they'd left on the glass tabletop.

"What do you mean _physically_?" Daisy echoed. "Are you two okay?" She started to stand up but Coulson waved her back to her seat.

"Turbo?" Mack asked, clearly concerned.

"I'm okay, Mack," Jemma answered.

Billy looked from one scientist to the other and back again. Then, he blinked. Well. That was a surprise.

They were going to need new lanyards.

"Sorry, Simmons," Mack apologized, waving his hands awkwardly. "I'm worried about you, too."

"No," Fitz-in-Jemma shook his head. "I mean, _I'm_ fine. Turbo," he gestured to his current body. "It's _me_ , Mack. I'm in here."

Daisy, Mack, and Hunter reacted with variations on the theme of, "Whoa."

"Yeah," Coulson nodded in agreement. "Major 'whoa.' And we need to figure out how to Freaky Friday them out of this again."

Billy pulled up Netflix and added Freaky Friday to his queue. He also ordered it on his Kindle, just to be safe. There might be discrepancies between the book and the movie.

"I don't suppose just sticking them in front of the monolith and waiting is a possibility?" Hunter asked dryly.

Jemma-in-Fitz scoffed and rolled her eyes and took out her phone. She texted something quickly and then Fitz-in-Jemma took his phone out and read it.

"Right," Fitz-in-Jemma nodded. Then he looked up at the rest of the team and explained. "We can't be sure that exposure to the monolith will reverse the process," he said. "So we need to collect as much data on it as we can before we try again."

Billy started compiling all video footage of the monolith from its discovery to the present moment. He also did a search for all data based on sensor readings and sediment scrapings, as well as all evidence connected with its original location.

"Why isn't Fitz talking?" Daisy asked with a frown. "I mean... Jemma?" She squinted. "I mean... _That_ one," she pointed at Fitz's body.

Fitz-in-Jemma took a deep breath and squeezed his former hand. " _She_ 's," he paused, steeling himself. "She's got my aphasia," he said quickly. "And it's giving her some problems."

This time the group reaction was murmurs of sympathy.

Billy emailed Jemma the details of Fitz's physiotherapy schedule as well as the exercises he'd received from his speech language pathologist.

Jemma-in-Fitz smiled back at the group in thanks. "I'll b-b-be alr-r-right," she reassured them, squeezing Fitz-in-Jemma's hand.

Hunter frowned, suddenly thinking of something. "Wait," he said slowly. "This happened two days ago, you said?"

"That's right," Coulson nodded.

Hunter looked at Jemma's body and pointed. "You complete _wanker_ ," he grinned and shook his head in admiration. "I should have known the two of you didn't get together!"

Daisy looked up at the ceiling, clearly trying to remember something. Then the realization his her face. "Oh my god," she groaned, slapping her hand over her eyes. "We've got to tell Bobbi."

"Let me," Mack requested, looking from Fitz to Simmons slowly. "She can't kill _me_."

Fitz and Jemma both managed to look appropriately guilty for hiding the secret from their friends.

Billy went to the website of their favourite local bakery and ordered a cake. After a moment's thought about the message, he decided to keep it simple. _We're Sorry_.

"Good," Coulson nodded efficiently. Then he took a seat at the head of the table where he'd been standing throughout the meeting. "Now, let's make a plan."

Billy sat down next to him and got ready to take notes. This was what he was born to do.


	28. Jemma as Fitz

Jemma tried to steady her hand while she stood at her workstation in the lab. She focused on her monitor so that she didn't have to see the stares and listen to the whispers around her, but she still had the uncomfortable feeling between her shoulder blades of someone watching her.

A footstep behind her made her jump, and she cursed under her breath.

"Sorry," came Mack's deep voice behind her.

"It's alr-r-right," she said, turning with a stiff smile. The look of sympathy on Mack's face was simultaneously comforting and embarrassing. She didn't enjoy feeling pitied. She looked at him awkwardly, not knowing what he wanted, and twisted her fingers together in front of her. 

When she noticed what she was doing, she made herself stop and automatically crossed her arms over her chest to keep her hands still.

"So, do I call you Simmons or Fitz or...?" Mack asked, hands opening wide in an all-encompassing gesture.

"S-S-Simmons, please," Jemma said firmly. Noticing that she had her arms crossed over her chest, she forced them down to her sides. She did her best to relax her smile, as well. Mack was clearly trying to be supportive, and she shouldn't punish him for that. "...Or J-Jemma?" she offered hesitantly. 

They'd sort of gotten off on the wrong foot when she'd come back from Hydra, and she hadn't really known how to get past that before. But if he were willing to reach out in her moment of need, she certainly wasn't going to refuse.

"Jemma," Mack nodded slightly with a half-smile.

"D-d-did you n-need s-something?" she asked, clenching and unclenching her left hand as it shook at her side. She knew she should allow herself to stutter, that focusing on meaning ahead of perfection was the way to make it to the end of the sentence, but it was just so _hard_ to do. Her gut _ached_ with the frustration of it all.

She hated to fail in front of _anyone_ , let alone a member of her team.

Let alone someone she _wanted_ to be friends with but didn't know how to go about it.

"Just thought you could use some company," Mack shrugged, pulling up a nearby stool and dwarfing it as he sat down.

"But F-Fitz..." she glanced in the direction of the Director's office where Fitz and Coulson were deep in discussion. It had hurt, when she'd come back from Hydra and seen Fitz with a new best friend. It felt like she'd been replaced. Like she were being punished for leaving. For not knowing how she felt about him. For not knowing how to take care of him the way that he needed her to. 

"He's working on Coulson's hand," Mack explained.

"H-Hunter?" she tried. They'd known each other for _years_. Worked together and fought together side by side. They were practically brothers at this point. Surely Mack would rather spend time with him.

"Went back to bed until the world stops swimming."

"B-B-Bo-"

Mack interrupted her with a raised hand. "I'm starting to think you don't want me around," he said, one eyebrow lifted in shrewd assessment.

Jemma shook her head weakly but couldn't think of anything to say. It wasn't that _she_ didn't like _Mack_ , although there _had_ been a period of rather intense jealousy over his friendship with Fitz. It was just that they'd never really gotten close up to this point. She was past the point of thinking that  _he_ didn't like  _her_ , but she still couldn't fathom why he might want to keep her company now.

Mack watched her for a moment of intense study, but then he blinked and leaned back a bit and the moment was broken.

"How are things coming with the monolith?" he asked, turning to look at her screen.

Jemma felt herself relax as the topic turned to work, and she looked to her screen, as well. That was a much easier field to navigate than the intricacies of friendships and interactions.

"N-not as w-well as I'd h-h-hoped," she admitted. "Even with the extra..." she trailed off as she lost the word she was looking for. "Extra..." she could feel the panic starting to rise in her chest as she kept Mack waiting for the end of her sentence. "Extra..." she blinked rapidly as her eyes started to prickle, and she tried to breathe in through her mouth instead of her nose in order to calm herself down.

Mack waited patiently with no external reaction to her distress. "You need samples, don't you?" he asked with a wry look.

Jemma knew that her face was flushed with embarrassment, but she tried to pretend it wasn't. Instead, she nodded as professionally as she could manage.

"I'm not ready to open the containment field just yet," Mack shook his head. " _But_ ," he held up a hand when she looked like she was about to protest. "Let's talk out what you'll need to do to _get_ the samples and what tests you'll need to run after you have them."

Jemma stopped short before she could even being to argue. Planning out all of the tests ahead meant that they would ensure that they collected enough sample material and wouldn't have to go in a second time. And they would certainly have to prepare first before they went in for the collection, in order to ensure the safety of whichever agent was sent in to get the samples.

She raised her eyebrows in appreciation of Mack's forethought.

And then she smiled.

Genuine smiles had been in short supply for entirely too long now. Even with the strangeness of smiling with someone else's face, she enjoyed the feeling.

"I _d-do_ enjoy, pre-prep-prep..." she closed her eyes and drew in a quick breath but tried not to let it get to her. " _P-planning_ things," she finished. And then she opened her eyes and breathed out feeling a bit calmer.

"Well, _alright_ , Preppy," Mack said with an enthusiastic grin. "Let's get organized."

Jemma felt a warmth in her chest that spread out to her limbs as she watched Mack pull his stool closer to her station and take out his tablet. He'd given her a nickname.

They were _friends._


	29. Fitz as Jemma

Fitz steeled himself as he sat by Bobbi's side and waited for her to wake up. He busied himself by pulling his hair into a ponytail to get it off the back of his neck. How did it not drive Jemma crazy having it constantly tickling her like that? He was glad he'd left off her usual necklace this morning, too, because that had been even more distracting.

Looking around to make sure no one was in sight, he pulled at the underwire under his bra, trying to get it to settle more comfortably against his ribs. As great as this bra made Jemma's tits look, he didn't think it was a good enough trade off for the lack of comfort.

Finally, he couldn't avoid the thought any longer and tried to decide how he'd tell Bobbi what had happened.

Mack had offered to take the hit on this one and be the one to tell her, but Fitz owed her enough to tell her himself. He'd never properly thanked her for taking care of Jemma when she'd been undercover at Hydra, and she'd never let him thank her for her help with his physiotherapy.

Bobbi groaned and her eyes fluttered open. "Ugh," she moaned. "Everything hurts."

Fitz gave her a sympathetic smile and patted the back of her hand. So much for figuring out what he was going to say before she woke up. "I stopped your painkillers," he explained. Well really, Jemma had, but he'd get there soon enough.

"What did I do to deserve that?" she asked with the ghost of a chuckle.

His smile tightened as his stomach clenched with nerves. "I need to tell you something," he explained slowly. "And I want you to be thinking clearly when I do."

Bobbi grinned weakly back and slid her hand out from under his to wipe the traces of sleep from her eyes. "So _now_ is the perfect time?" she asked groggily.

Fitz laughed briefly. "Well, I also want you to be out of it enough that I can get a head start on you." Even recovering from torture and with a blown knee, Bobbi was definitely a force to be reckoned with.

She frowned and her hand dropped down to rest on her stomach. "You're talking weird again," she said. "You were doing that yesterday, too."

He nodded and took a deep breath. Might as well just get it over with. "That's what I need to talk to you about," he said, leaning forward and taking her hand again. He looked up when he saw Daisy walk quietly into the room, but he shook his head at her. He could handle this.

Bobbi noticed Daisy as well, and her eyes shifted from one of them to the other, her face growing more worried. "What's going on?" she asked.

"There was an accident with the monolith," Fitz started, trying to find the best way to describe an indescribable situation.

"Hunter!" Bobbi, gasped, sitting up in bed and moving to get up.

"What? No!" Fitz half-stood and pressed her back into the mattress again. Jemma's body wasn't as strong as Bobbi, but he was still able to force her to lie back down. "Hunter's fine!" he reassured her.

Daisy snorted in the corner. "He's got the mother of all hangovers," she corrected him. Then, seeing the worry hadn't dissipated from Bobbi's face, she moved closer to the bed and clarified. "But that's nothing to do with the monolith."

"What the hell happened?" Bobbi asked. She was glaring from one friend to the other and Fitz could tell that keeping her in the dark for even one minute more would _not_ be well-received.

"Jemma and I were both exposed directly to the monolith," he said simply.

" _Jemma_ and-" Bobbi said, frowning at the face that she'd always known as Jemma's.

Daisy stood beside Fitz and rested one hand on his shoulder. "Bobbi?" she said with a falsely bright smile. "I'd like you to meet the new and improved Fitz."

He turned to glare at her. "I said _I_ was going to tell her," he said shortly.

"You were taking too long," Daisy shrugged.

"I was _getting there_!" he protested, turning to face her with his hands on the small of his back.

"Oh my god," Bobbi said, staring at his stance. "Fitz?" She looked up at his face, scanning his features carefully. "Holy shit," she whispered.

"Right?" Daisy confirmed. "I mean, I didn't want to say anything, but Jemma's been looking kind of rough the last couple of days." She jabbed a thumb in his direction. "It was actually a _relief_ to find out it was Fitz in there instead."

"Hey," he frowned, looking down at himself. He'd thought he looked rather nice today. He always liked Jemma in this blouse.

"Couple of days?" Bobbi asked, dropping back onto her pillows as she let it all sink in.

Fitz nodded apologetically while reaching up to let his hair down again. He combed his fingers through it and wondered if that was any better at all.

"Please tell me _you_ haven't been making my medical decisions," Bobbi asked dryly. Then she patted the empty mattress beside her and Fitz sat down. Daisy took the chair next to the bed, and he started to fill them both in on the events of the last several days.


	30. Hunter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two apologies ahead of this chapter 
> 
> 1) Sorry for the delay in posting! I'm doing a silly/stupid thing over on tumblr right now that has been taking my attention away from AO3, but it's a long weekend so I hope to be posting here more frequently again!
> 
> 2) Hunter is going to mis-gender Fitz in this chapter, and I'm sorry for any discomfort that may cause. But don't worry. He'll get it right eventually (whether that's this chapter or not...?)

Hunter scrubbed his face with both hands and sighed as he looked in his bathroom mirror. Going back to bed hadn't made him feel much better, but a quick shower and a thorough teeth-brushing had done wonders.

As had that Extra Strength Tylenol Koenig had given him. Or was it the vitamins?

He pulled on his favourite black tshirt and tried not to think of seeing Jemma/Fitz in a very similar outfit the night before.

He frowned. There was no way he was remembering that conversation right.

Pulling on his jeans, he finished dressing and went out in search of his best mate. There were questions that desperately needed answering.

* * *

"What's sex like as a woman?" Hunter asked, passing Fitz a beer and then vaulting over the back of the sofa to sit next to him. Her?

He watched in fascination as Jemma's face made Fitz's horrified expression. The sleeker brows and larger eyes definitely had more 'oomph' behind them than Fitz's did. And those perfectly formed lips looked quite fetching in that angry 'O'. Definitely her.

"We haven't-!" Fitz started, looking from Hunter to Mack and back again. "We're _not going to_ have sex!" Fitz said, crossing her arms awkwardly over her chest. And then under her chest. And then she grabbed a pillow and wrapped her arms around that instead.

"Was the date that bad?" Hunter asked, reaching out to brush her hair behind her ear. It was getting in her face.

Fitz smacked his hand and pulled her head back out of reach with a frown. "Oi! Hands off!" she said, hitting Hunter with the throw pillow for good measure.

"Sorry!" Hunter apologized, hands raised up to show he'd keep them to himself. Eesh. Since when was Fitz so sensitive? Must be the girly hormones.

"And _no_ ," Fitz grumbled, shaking her hair forward again. "I mean, _yes_? But just at the start."

"Where'd you go?" Mack asked, taking a sip of his beer before letting the bottle dangle from two fingers between his knees.

"That Italian place Bobbi was talking about?" Fitz grinned. She blushed prettily and bit her lower lip. "It was... nice."

Hunter snorted into his own beer. "Nice and _expensive_ you mean," he shook his head in remembrance of when he'd taken Bob there. "I hope you made _him_ pay."

"Him?" Fitz frowned in confusion.

"Of course," Hunter said. "This is a fantastic opportunity, mate!" he enthused. "You're the _girl_! That means you get to eat for free!" He offered his hand for a high five.

Fitz was looking at him like he was an idiot. Why was she looking at him like he was an idiot? He looked over at Mack for a little guidance.

"What?" he asked when no help was forthcoming.

"I'm not a _girl_ ," Fitz said, clearly frustrated.

Hunter rolled his eyes and sighed, dropping his still-un-fived hand. "I'm sorry," he said, not sounding very apologetic. " _Woman_. Is that better?"

"But I'm _not_ a woman," Fitz pointed out, pouting slightly.

Hunter quickly looked her up and down. "Uh, hate to tell you this, mate, but-"

"Hunter!" Mack suddenly interrupted. "Can you help me in the kitchen for a second?" He was giving him that look he always gave him when he was putting his foot in his mouth. Whatever _that_ was about.

"My _mind_ is still the same," Fitz said shortly, waving Mack back to his seat. "It's just my _body_ that's different."

"So I saw last night," Hunter agreed, waggling his eyebrows and taking a long pull from his beer bottle.

Fitz buried her face in her hands. " _Don't_ remind me," she moaned.

"Seriously, though," Hunter leaned forward eagerly. "How great is it having tits?"

Fitz looked up. She looked sad. "Terrible?" she asked.

"What?" Hunter asked, feeling betrayed. "No way!"

"They're horrid!" Fitz said vehemently. She pushed the cushion off her lap and gripped her boobs in her little hands. "They get in the way all the time, and they _ache_ , and the nipples get hard for _no bloody reason_ , and _I can't even cross my arms!_ " Rant achieved, she collapsed back on the sofa cushions, hands dropping to her sides in defeat.

"Well, sure," Hunter shrugged awkwardly. That really wasn't he'd been expecting to hear. "But they're fun to play with, right?"

Mack stared at his beer bottle and made sympathetic noises but otherwise kept his thoughts to himself.

Fitz blushed and laughed softly. "I mean, a bit?" she admitted. Then she frowned again and wiggled in her seat. "But bras are designed by the devil."

"Oh!" Hunter said, inspired. "Can you take it off while you're still wearing your shirt?" he asked. He'd always wanted to know how women did that, but any time he asked, Bobbi just rolled her eyes and proceeded without explanation.

"Girls can _do_ that?" Fitz asked.

Hunter nodded and Mack raised his eyebrows in a facial shrug of agreement.

"I can't even put one _on_ ," she admitted, still looking very impressed.

"Then how-?" Mack started to ask, then stopped himself. "Nevermind."

Hunter grinned. "So you two _have_ been getting naked together," he concluded.

Fitz blushed and refused to look at either one of them. Leaning over, she pulled a game controller off of the coffee table and changed the subject. "Are we going to play or aren't we?" she asked.

Hunter's grin widened but he reached for a controller, too. "Fitz and Simmons sitting in a tree..." he started to sing. It was about time those two kids got together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that I'm not actually trying to make Hunter an asshole. I just think that the team is going to have some difficulties with a lot of the aspects of what's going on, and this is definitely one of them. He's a total sweetheart and very well-meaning, he just needs to get a bit of an education is all :P


	31. Daisy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI: Daisy is having similar issues to Hunter, but she comes around a bit more easily.

"This is _so weird_ ," Daisy interrupted their movie for the third time as she watched Fitz's body sitting on the edge of the couch cushion with its elbows on its knees and hands clasped neatly. It was such a _Jemma_ pose and yet...

"S-so you keep saying," Jemma said wryly rolling her... his?... its?... their? eyes. "C-c-can we maybe t-talk about s-something _else_ for a wh-while?"

Daisy turned sideways on the sofa and propped one arm on the back of the couch while leaning forward to squint at Jemma's/Fitz's eyes. "I just can't get over the fact that that's _you_ in there," she said with a shake of her head. As much as FitzSimmons had always been in each other's heads, they'd never actually been  _in_ each other's heads. "I mean, it's just so-"

"W-w-weird. Yes. I bel-lieve we've... established that," Jemma said crisply.

"I'm sorry!" Daisy apologized. At the same time, though, it wasn't like she could  _stop_ talking about it. "I just don't know..." she flailed around for words and failed to find any good ones. The problem was that she didn't know  _anything_ about how to handle this situation. "I mean, what do I...?" She let out a soft groan of internal frustration and swung her arm from the sofa back to her forehead. "I don't even know what _pronouns_ to use! I mean..." She gave Jemma/Fitz a lost look that she hoped encompassed all her feelings of confusion and apology and friendship.

Jemma took a steadying breath and hit pause on the remote before turning sideways on the cushion to face her. "What pr-pronoun would you use if I w-were in my _own_ b-b-body?"

Daisy frowned. "She?"

"Well then?" The eyebrow raise wasn't quite as imperious on Fitz's face as it was on Jemma's, but it still got the point across.

"But you're-" Daisy cut herself off before she said it, but she couldn't help looking at Fitz's/Jemma's lap.

Jemma looked at her flatly. "Having a p-p-penis doesn't m-make me any l-less of a woman."

Daisy squinted at that, head turned slightly to the side as she looked at her friend. "Uh, I mean... It _kinda_ does?" she said, feeling not at all sure of what she was saying. "... Doesn't it?" The more she thought about it, the less that logic seemed to make sense. Jemma had been a woman for her entire life up to this point. Did this totally messed up situation really change that?

Jemma closed... her? eyes for a second, seeming to gather... her? thoughts. ... Her? mouth was set with determination when... she? opened them up again.

"Th-think of it this way," ... she? said. "You y-used to be S-Skye, and now you're D-D-Daisy, right?"

Daisy nodded slowly.

"But no m-matter what n-n-name you use, you're s-still _you_ , aren't you?"

Daisy opened her mouth and then closed it again. She'd had so many names already in her short life, and while all of them suited who she was at the time, it wasn't the  _name_ that made her who she was. She blinked. She was  _herself_ , and she used the name that best represented who that self was. Her forehead crinkled her brows together. And Jemma was still _her_ self? No matter what body she was in?

"Whoa," she finally whispered. Shit just got _real_. "So you're still _you_ , even though you _look_ like Fitz..." It was almost a question, but it made enough sense that she left it a statement.

Jemma smiled sardonically. "I don't s-suppose you'd be w-w-willing to say that to, w-well, everyone else on the b-base?"

Daisy blew out a sympathetic breath. "Most of them haven't gotten the memo about the 'Daisy' thing yet," she chuckled humourlessly. "If they can't even handle a name change, I don't know that I like your odds on the whole body swap thing."

Jemma nodded glumly and slumped down on the couch in defeat.

Daisy looked at _her_ lying there and her heart when out to _her_. Time for the cheer up squad.

"I mean, it's not all bad, right?" she teased, nudging Jemma's thigh gently with her fist.

"What d-do you m-mean?" Jemma asked.

"I _mean_ ," Daisy teased with a wicked grin, "You've totally seen Fitz's junk!"

Jemma blushed red right to the roots of her hair. "D-D-Daisy!" she gasped trying to look scandalized.

"And I hear there were makeouts?" Daisy prodded further, grin widening.

"Who t-t-told you?" Jemma asked, sitting bold upright with a frown.

"Fitz," Daisy shrugged. She glanced at Jemma out of the corner of her eye while pretending to concentrate on grabbing some popcorn from the bowl on the coffee table. "He said you were a good kisser."

Jemma's frown melted off of her face and a dopey smile took its place. "He d-did?" she asked, clearly pleased.

"Uh huh," Daisy confirmed with a smug smirk.

"Well," Jemma said, reverting to her usual seated position of knees together, elbows on thighs, and hands clasped together. "He's qu- qu- ... very good too," she said, lifting her hands and skimming them over her ears before quickly bringing them back to her lap and tangling them together again.

"You don't say?" Daisy said mildly, throwing a piece of popcorn into the air and catching it in her mouth with a wide smile.

Jemma looked at her out of the corner of her eye, her mouth twisting into a bow as she tried not to smile. "Oh, hush," she said reaching for the remote control again and pressing play on the movie.

Daisy watched for a few minutes, munching on her popcorn and looking at Jemma now and again. Finally, she couldn't hold it in anymore.

"So, how big is it?"

And then she was laughing and trying not to get hit by the pillow that Jemma threw in her direction.


	32. Jemma as Fitz

Jemma stood in the middle of her own room with her eyes closed, wearing her own flannel pajamas and trying to feel some semblance of normal again.

She breathed in slowly, enjoying the warm smell of her favourite cinnamon candle, and breathed out even slower, trying to release the tensions of the day. What she really wanted to do was have a nice hot bath. Her brow crinkled in annoyance. That would _not_ be relaxing or normal just now.

Opening her eyes, she sighed and gave it up as a lost cause. She'd feel normal again when she was back in her own body. For now...

She reached for her night cream and started rubbing it into her cheeks and forehead. For now, she'd do her best to follow her old routine.

Even if the stubble on her cheeks made it impossible to forget that her old routine was her _old_ routine.

A knock on her door distracted her from her thoughts.

She went over to open it, but hesitated with her hand on the knob, not entirely sure she wanted to see anyone just now. They'd been trying their best, they really had, but she didn't think she had it in her to have the same basic conversation with yet another well-meaning friend. How difficult was it to understand that she was herself and Fitz was himself and they just happened to have exchanged exteriors for the time being.

Ugh.

"Jemma?" came her own voice through the door, and she couldn't help but shiver at the sound. As much as she tried not to let it get to her, it was decided uncomfortable to have conversations with someone who looked like _her_ but... wasn't.

Not to mention the fact that looking at her own non-reflected face was almost like looking at a Picasso. All of the pieces were there, but none of them were in the right place.

With a sigh, she pasted a smile on Fitz's face and opened the door. It wasn't _his_ fault they were in this situation.

He was standing in the hallway, holding a small bundle of clothes awkwardly in one hand and looking uncomfortably down the hall.

"Finally," he breathed out with relief. Moving quickly, he squeezed past her and into her room, not stopping until he was sitting on her bed.

Jemma's brows rose into her hairline at his entrance. That was... not typical.

Closing the door behind him, she moved more slowly over to her bed and settled down on it next to him. She tapped his knee gently to get his attention, and then looked at him expectantly.

"Sorry, sorry," he apologized, squeezing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and ring finger. "I've just..." he looked at her helplessly for a moment. "It's been a _day_ , hasn't it?"

She nodded emphatically and blew out a heavy breath of agreement, smiling sardonically. "D-d-d-" Her smile faltered along with her words. She swallowed and licked her lips before trying again. "Ab-abs-" Her fingers clenched on her thighs and she turned away from Fitz as she tried to concentrate on her breathing. "Mmhmm," she finished.

"Anyway," Fitz continued, standing up and looking at her hopefully. "Can I stay here tonight? I'd rather not... I don't want to..." He dropped his bundle of clothes on the bed and put his hands on his lower back, staring down at her floor where he was scuffing his shoe.

It was such a Fitz gesture, Jemma couldn't help but smile at him fondly.

Then he looked up at her and pierced her with her own eyes and suddenly it was hard to breathe.

"Last night was..." he swallowed hard but didn't break their eye contact. " _Good_ ," he said.

She was surprised by the force behind the word. Even if she hadn't agreed, she probably would have nodded along.

"You think so, too?" he asked, his shoulders loosening with released tension. Somehow he managed to make her face do that crooked little half smile he always did when he wasn't sure if she was genuinely complimenting him or just taking the piss.

She nodded back, unable to stop her smile from broadening. Then she stood up and turned back the covers on her bed.

Fitz hesitated for a moment and then cleared his throat. "Look," he said apologetically. "I know this is absolutely ridiculous considering the situation, but..."

Jemma frowned in confusion, but when he bent over to pick up the clothes he'd brought and then stood there uncertainly in front of her, she understood.

Pressing her lips together so as not to laugh at the silliness of him trying to hide her own body from her, she turned around.

"Thanks," he said gratefully. "I mean, I know it's you and all, and you've seen yourself naked since the day you were born it's just..."

Jemma nodded. She understood. But her shoulders still bounced slightly with the effort of containing her laughter.

"I mean, when I've thought about being naked in the same room as-" he stopped short mid-sentence, and Jemma turned around to look at him.

He had a tshirt on and was just pulling a pair of boxers up his legs.

"Not... that... I've..." He stared at her from his bent over position, frozen in the act of getting dressed.

Jemma took the two steps necessary to bridge the distance between them and reached down to pull his boxers the rest of the way up his legs. Then, she leaned down and kissed him on his soft, blushing cheek.

"M-me too," she admitted.

Then she turned away from him and crawled into bed, patting the mattress beside her once she was settled.


	33. Fitz as Jemma

"Are you sure about this?" Fitz asked, looking dubiously down at the squishy rubber rectangle Jemma was trying to get him to hold against his abdomen. "I mean, won't it leak everywhere?"

Jemma sighed and looked at him pityingly. "It's a hot water bottle, Fitz," she explained not-so-patiently. "They're _designed_ not to leak."

"Well, yes but..."

"It'll help with the cramping," she said firmly. "Now take it."

Fitz grumbled a bit, but pressed it against his stomach in the general neighbourhood of his uterus.

A moment later, the warmth from the bottle started spreading into his muscles, and he felt the cramping start to lessen. He let out a soft breath of air and relaxed back against Jemma where she was spooned in behind him.

"Better?" she asked in her most know-it-all tone.

"Oh hush," he grinned. "You've done this before, remember?"

"Exactly," she nodded against his shoulder. "So maybe you should tr-... should... uh... _believe_ me about these things?"

"Alright, alright," he placated her.Settling down on the pillow a bit more, stared at the stream of light coming in from under her door and thought about the day he'd just had. 

"They took it pretty well," he said quietly.

"Hmm?" Jemma asked behind him. He wondered if she might be nodding off.

"Y'know," he shrugged. "Everyone?"

"I suppose," she nodded, and he felt her breath on the back of his neck.

"I mean, I think I could do with a bit more _understanding_ ," he chuckled humourlessly, "But at least there were no comments about us being crazy. So there's that."

Jemma snorted softly behind him, and he felt her roll over onto her back.

"You too, hey?" he asked sympathetically, rolling over to his other side to look at her.

"Mack was great," she said quickly.

"Yeah," Fitz nodded. "He was pretty great last year, too, about my," he pointed to his temple.

Jemma nodded. "To me too," she agreed. "Now, I mean."

"But Hunter..." he trailed off, shaking his head. After spending an evening with him in a woman's body... "How was it with Daisy?"

Jemma smiled. "She understands," she said. "She's been there, herself, after all."

Fitz nodded. He could certainly see some similarities in terms of changing identities while not really changing much at all.

"Coulson just keeps calling me FitzSimmons," he said with a bit of an eyeroll.

"Me too," Jemma said, mouth quirked into a wry grin.

He looked at her a bit shyly, not sure of how to say what he wanted to say.

"What?" she asked, eyebrows wrinkling.

"It's just..." he shrugged and then lay on his back beside her, staring at her ceiling. "It's been a while since I've heard that name, that's all."

When Jemma didn't say anything in return, he wondered what she was thinking. Was he pushing too hard? Everything was so messed up right now, and he didn't know where they stood. Were they friends? More than that? Was it all on hold? It was all going in fits and starts and none of it really made sense and-

He started a bit when Jemma's hand slid into his, but then he threaded his fingers in between hers and squeezed.

* * *

 

Fitz settled back into bed next to Jemma again with a sour look on his face and the hot water bottle held tight against his belly.

"How have you survived this long if you get cold this easily?" he asked, plucking at his newly-donned flannel pajamas.

Jemma blew a raspberry beside him, and he didn't need to look at her face to know she was rolling her eyes. "How have _you_ not sp... uh..." He waited patiently as Jemma searched for the words she was looking for. "Caught fire?" she finished with a noise of disgust. Whether it was at her inability to remember the word she was looking for or at her newly increased body temperature, he couldn't tell.

"If I were _actually_ in danger of spontaneous human combustion," Fitz said jokingly. He turned on his side, propping himself up on an elbow and resting his cheek on his hand, and looked down at his own face looking up at him. "I'm pretty sure changing into a tshirt and boxers wouldn't really help that much."

It had been odd, changing clothes in front of each other. Obviously, they'd seen both themselves and each other naked any number of times at this point. Hell, they'd stripped naked together once before already, just to get it over with.

But this time they were naked after spending the night together. They'd curled up together in his bed and held each other and slept and it had felt like home and peace and _right_ and now they'd gotten naked again and it was somehow even more intimate than it had been before.

He wanted to tease her, to joke around and be best friends. But he _also_ wanted to be back in his own body and for her to be in hers and for their sharing a bed to be more than a temporary source of comfort and normalcy.

Jemma smiled up at him in that slow way she had, and it was _her_ looking up at him. She was shining through the blueness of his eyes and smiling through the day-long growth of stubble on his cheeks, and this time he didn't need any convincing from himself or from her.

Leaning over slowly, giving her the chance to stop him, he focused on her lips and tried to replace them with the pair currently on the front of his own face. He missed seeing those lips. They were perfect: the kind of lips that artists drew or painted. The kind you could buy as stickers at Valentine's Day. The kind you somehow always ended up imagining kissing, even before you realized who they belonged to.

He hesitated when he was so close to her that he could feel her minty breath on his face, and he flicked his eyes up to meet hers. Then she pressed one palm against his cheek and slid the other hand into his hair, and then they were kissing.

It was hardly their first kiss. They'd gotten that out of the way surprisingly early on. He still couldn't believe he'd done it. And last night, of course, they'd done a fair bit more of it. But that had all been a lot more self-conscious than this. That had felt like they were doing something ... illicit? Somehow? That they shouldn't _really_ be doing any of this until they had gotten things back to normal again.

But the more they worked on the problem, the longer term it seemed to be, and Fitz for one didn't want to wait any longer than he had to. He'd waited ten years. That was bloody long enough.

He closed his eyes when she pulled him down that last half inch, and then their lips parted against each other and his sigh mingled together with hers and it was like he was breathing her in with every breath that he took.

Shifting around, he felt the hot water bottle slide out from between them, and then it was his chest pressed against hers and her hands tangled in his hair and his hands grabbing onto the tshirt she wore and all of that was secondary to their lips.

He heard a soft little whimper come out and was shocked to discover it came from him. But then he also heard a groan escape from Jemma, and he found he wanted nothing more than to make her make that sound again. Flattening his hand against her chest, he felt the thrumming of her heart beat under his palm and tilted his head to taste even more of her.

His breasts felt tender and his nipples painfully hard and a tingling tension seemed to fill his gut.

Kissing Jemma, _really_ kissing her, kissing her with every kiss he'd wanted to give her for more than a year, felt better than anything he'd ever done before.

It was a shame that they'd have to stop.

Eventually.


	34. Bobbi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for any medical inaccuracies here. I'm basing this off of my very vague memories of the last time I got a shot which was probably 2 years ago? Also, if you don't like needles you might not like this chapter :P

"So... _Jemma_ ," Bobbi said carefully as she watched Fitz's body moving around her hospital room. She narrowed her eyes and focused on the details. It kept her mind off of the pain.

"Yes?" Jemma answered vaguely. She was setting items carefully on a sterile tray: gauze, alcohol, syringe, medication, cotton swab, bandaid. Bobbi watched her do it in the same order as she usually did, lining the items up with her usual precision and listing them off under her breath before turning around with the tray in her hands and a smile on her face.

She might look like Fitz, but she was definitely Simmons.

"You and Fitz?" Bobbi asked, raising an eyebrow.

Jemma blushed and ducked her head, but she didn't have the requisite long hair to hide her expression anymore. Not that doing that had ever kept Bobbi from seeing right through her.

Bobbi waited patiently for a response, watching Jemma press her lips together and put on her latex gloves with her elbows just a bit too close in to her ribs and her shoulders slightly hunched. She was definitely uncomfortable. Classic Jemma avoidance pose.

Jemma drew a deep, nervous breath and looked up at Bobbi with a self-conscious smile.

 _So_. Shields up, then.

"W-what about us?" Jemma asked as she dampened the gauze with some alcohol and took hold of Bobbi's wrist. Turning her arm to expose the inside of her elbow, she gently cleaned the area she was going to work on.

"How's it going?" Bobbi asked. She purposefully kept the question vague, knowing that something more pointed could be more easily rebuffed. An open question like this one would give her more information. Holding the sterile patch in place, she watched Jemma take the cap off the syringe and plunge it into the little glass vial of meds. Her left hand shook as her right drew back the plunger, and Bobbi tried not to feel _too_ relieved that Jemma was right-handed.

"It's v-very _s-s-strange_ ," Jemma smiled tightly, pressing the needle against Bobbi's skin under the gauze and slowly giving her the injection.

"How so?" Bobbi asked, watching her face carefully. It was tricky trying to impose Jemma's tells on Fitz's face, especially because not all of Jemma's movements were her own. Muscle memory played a much larger role in body language and facial expression than conscious thought did, after all.

That said, that was a distinctly Jemma brow furrow.

"W-well," Jemma said with a sigh as she replaced the gauze with a cotton ball. Bobbi held it in place while Jemma went to dispose of the syringe in the sharps container. "For a..." she paused and her back stiffened up, but since she was facing away Bobbi couldn't read her expression. "To be-be-be _gin_ with," she continued, and her tone was clearly annoyed. "Try t-talking to your own f-f-face and s-see how m-much _you_ l-l-like it."

By the time she'd turned around, Jemma had forced her body into a more relaxed position, but Bobbi still noticed how her left hand was clenching and unclenching at her side. Every time it opened up, it danced a nervous jig and then she'd curl it into a fist again.

"Not very much, probably," Bobbi said dryly.

Jemma sighed more midly this time as she returned to Bobbi's side to apply the bandaid. "S-still," she smiled softly. "A-at least it's _F-F-Fitz_ , right?" she asked.

Bobbi looked carefully at her face, noticing the tense lines around the eyes and mouth that Fitz didn't usually have. The lips were purse a bit too tight and the jaw seemed harder than usual, too. Obviously Jemma was keeping quite a tight grip on _something_. It was just a matter of _what_.

Bobbi covered Jemma's hand with her own once the bandaid was in place. "Hey," she said quietly. "You ever want to talk, I'm here."

Jemma looked at her, startled, and slid her hand out from under Bobbi's. She took a step back and tried to curl her close-cropped hair behind her ears, closing her eyes and cursing under her breath when it wasn't possible. Shaking her head firmly, she picked up the tray and brought it back to the counter. She yanked open the cupboard door with more force than necessary and put the alcohol away, closing it again with a loud snap. Then she crumpled up the bandaid wrapper and tossed it, the gauze, the cotton ball, and finally her gloves in the medical waste basket.

Bobbi watched all of the small, slightly frantic movements with a careful eye. She didn't know what she'd said, but clearly she'd upset her. She couldn't help but wonder why. She and Jemma had had a lot of good conversations since coming back from Hydra. They'd had a few more even better ones in this hospital room, in fact.

"Jemma?" Bobbi pressed gently. Last she knew, things between Jemma and Fitz had been looking really promising. There had even been a date! And kissing! Both of which had happened after their accident with the monolith, so Bobbi wondered what had happened overnight to make Jemma this rattled.

"N-no th-thanks," Jemma finally answered with a tight grin. "T-talking's n-not my s-s-strong s-s-suit just n-now." She swallowed hard and looked slightly sick and suddenly Bobbi understood.

"Does Fitz know?" she asked, getting right to the heart of it.

Jemma nodded. "He's b-been l-l-lovely," she said loyally, clearly wishing to acknowledge his efforts.

"But?" Bobbi pressed.

Jemma shrugged and steepled her hands in front of her, looking at them rather than at Bobbi.

Bobbi frowned, trying to piece together where the problem might be. She thought back to the various conversation she'd had with both Fitz and Simmons and then on conversations with Daisy and Mack and May.

When Fitz had been at his worst, right after coming out of his coma, Jemma had been there with him every minute of every day. She'd been such a harpy to the medical staff caring for him that Coulson had had to physically remove her from the hospital on more than one occasion, just to give them a break. And Fitz hadn't been a bed of roses, either. Lashing out at anyone and everyone, hurling books as often as he hurled insults.

What had Jemma said about her leaving to help him get better?

What had Fitz said about her abandoning him?

Bobbi watched as Jemma slowly returned to her bedside and sat in the visitor chair. She obviously wanted to talk about things and just as obviously didn't want to say a word.

_She didn't want to say a word._

Bobbi's eyes widened in realization.

When Fitz had been really bad, Jemma had tried to fill in the gaps for him, supply the words that he was missing and keep their long-time bantering conversation style going. Fitz, meanwhile, had lashed out every time she'd done so and gotten increasingly upset and withdrawn over time. 

Bobbi looked at Jemma, clearly upset and trying not to be, and wondered if the same thing might be happening in reverse. Fitz was no doubt doing for her what he'd wanted her to do for him when he was first struck with aphasia: waiting patiently for her to figure out what she wanted to say and not putting words into her mouth. Jemma, on the other hand, probably wanted him to do for her what she'd tried to do for him: give her the words she needed in order to be understood.

Leaning over, Bobbi reached out and pried Jemma's hands apart, taking one into her grasp and giving it a squeeze.

"Does Fitz _know_?" she asked, looking at Jemma penetratingly.

Jemma's face dropped when she realized Bobbi had figured it out. "No," she said, just barely above a whisper.

"Don't you think you should tell him?" Bobbi said with a gentle smile.


	35. Jemma as Fitz

Jemma grit her teeth as she sent yet another email to a lab tech to do a routine test she should be able to do in her sleep. Her left hand was the problem. She still couldn't manage to control the shakes, no matter how carefully she tried to follow Fitz's advice. Much like how she hadn't yet found a way past the stutter. Or the aphasia.

Sighing, she adjusted her position on her lab stool again. It seemed like no matter how she arranged herself, her testicles always ended up feeling pinched. No wonder Fitz had always preferred his desk.

Finally, she gave up and stood, but that was no good either. Fitz's different height meant that her ergonomically adjusted desk space was now too awkwardly low to work at. She was still resisting fixing it in the hopes that she'd be back in her own body soon. Even if that seemed to be exceedingly unlikely.

She bit her lip and shifted her eyes guiltily over to where Fitz was sitting at his desk with Daisy, working on the monolith software. Her conversation with Bobbi kept intruding on her thoughts, as well, interrupting her in the middle of almost every task. 

How on _earth_ was she supposed to approach Fitz about this? He was being so wonderful, _beyond_ wonderful, that she couldn't tell him she needed ... something else. He was giving her exactly what he thought she needed, and rejecting that? It would be like rejecting _him_. Wouldn't it? 

That's what it had felt like for her when he'd done the same thing.

No, first she had to find a way to let him know how she felt. Know _everything_ about how she felt. Know-

She took a deep breath as her nerves overwhelmed her.

Locking her station, she walked quickly toward the door, head down and arms stiffly at her sides. If she moved fast enough, perhaps they wouldn't-

"Jemma?" Fitz asked when she was almost at the door. 

Damnit. 

"Hmm?" she said, turning to look at him with a pleasantly curious expression. 

"You alright?" he asked, and the frown wasn't  _quite_ right with her hair covering his forehead and her eyebrows doing the wrinkling, but she recognized the tone as concern. 

"J-just g-g-getting s-some..." She blanked on the word and her chest constricted. She just wanted to leave the room as quickly as possible, but Fitz and Daisy were looking at her, and she didn't want them to worry about her. So instead she smiled a tight smile and mimed drinking from a cup. "Want s-some?" she asked. It was the least she could do, considering how useless she was being otherwise. 

It wasn't like she'd be able to do any more work until that tech came over with her test results, anyway.

"Sure, yeah," he said, smiling and standing. "I'll come with."

Daisy was looking at him, first in surprise and then with a smirk, but he didn't notice. Jemma did, however. 

Feeling her face heat up with her blush, she tried to ignore Daisy's knowing look. Judging by that expression, Jemma was offering hot _sex_ instead of a hot beverage.

"B-but," she said, pointing Fitz back to his work. 

"Don't worry about me," Daisy said with a grin, holding her hands up. "I'm good. You two go right ahead and... _get tea_ ," she said with a wink. "I got this."

Oh very good, Daisy. Very subtle. Really.

Fitz blushed and scratched the back of his head, making his hair stand up and Jemma had to resist the urge to tell him to fix it. He hadn't harped on at her when she'd put on foundation and mascara that morning, so she would let him make a mess of his hair and help him brush out the tangles before bed. It was only fair. 

No matter how hard it was to see herself looking unkempt. 

Couldn't he at least tuck in her blouse?

She gave Daisy a self-conscious smile and shook her head in mock anger. "R-really!" she scoffed and rolled her eyes with a chuckle.

If not for the monolith, she could enjoy this teasing. It would be the perfect complement to her happiness at finally being where she wanted to be. Fitz had asked her out, and she'd said  _yes_. They'd had a date, they'd kissed, and they'd spent the night spooning. For all intents and purposes, they were a couple now, and yet...

And yet _nothing_.

Jemma's brows drew together slightly and she pressed her lips together in determination.

They _were_ a couple, bodies notwithstanding, and if they could work their way through everything else they'd had to work through to get here, they could work through this as well.

Tamping down on her internal uncertainty and taking a deep breath, stomach tied in knots, she reached out for Fitz's hand. 

Daisy's face broke into a huge smile which she immediately tried to get control of. The lights flickered slightly around them and the ground trembled slightly, but it stopped when Fitz glared at her. "I said nothing!" she protested, trying to look innocent.

"You didn't have to," Fitz said a bit gruffly in his embarrassment, tugging her hand to pull her from the room. "C'mon, Jemma."

Jemma shrugged an apology to Daisy and got a kissy face expression in return.

Honestly, did no one on this base have anything better to do than to think about her and Fitz kissing?

"S-sorry," Jemma apologized when they were in the hallway. She tried to take her hand back, but he held onto her and smiled shyly.

"Nothing to be sorry for," he said, giving her hand a squeeze. "It's not your fault Daisy's being... Daisy."

Jemma smiled back at him and returned the squeeze. She was just so glad that Fitz was being Fitz.

And then, checking to make sure the hallway was empty, she pulled him closer by their joined hands, and she kissed him.

“Careful,” he murmured against her lips. “Daisy sees  _ this _ and she’ll quake the whole base down.”

Jemma laughed and murmured back, “Don’t even care.” Then she kissed him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big thanks to notapepper for the beta for this chapter - it wouldn't have posted without her!


	36. Fitz as Jemma

Fitz was surprisingly put out to be sleeping on his own tonight. He hadn't realized how much of his day he was spending looking forward to spooning with Jemma until she'd asked him to go to his room alone. 

Well,  _almost_ alone. 

He looked at the thumb drive she'd given him and frowned. Even with her explicit request to read it, he still felt like a creep reading her journal. But she'd made it quite clear that she wanted him to see it, and if that's what she wanted... He shrugged and slotted the USB into his tablet.

He couldn't keep himself from chuckling as he thought about the reactions of the various people who had found out that Jemma journaled this way - typing up documents on her computer rather than handwriting in a notebook of some sort. Most of them seemed to think it was some sort of Carrie Bradshaw-style conceit. That she'd seen the typing and heard the voiceovers and seen the romance of Sex and the City and decided she wanted to do the same thing for herself. 

She usually put people off by referencing Dana Scully's habit in the X-files instead, but Fitz knew who her  _real_ inspiration was: Doogie Howser, M.D. 

Opening the folder, he blew out a breath when he saw how many there were. Did she really want him to read _all_ of these? She was as prolific with her writing as she was with her thoughts, and Fitz tried not to be daunted. Taking a deep breath, he clicked on the first one.

It was dated three days after they'd been trapped at the bottom of the ocean. Three days after she'd saved his life. Three days after he'd told her... Well, _told_ her.

 

> **  
>  **

Fitz frowned at the screen in front of him. His memory of the first week or so after his coma was still fragmented and would probably never completely return to him, but he did have a fractured recollection of Jemma saying she was sorry. He'd thought she was sorry _for him_ , not sorry about the results of what he'd done or sorry that she'd allowed it to happen. He clearly recalled hearing that word _sorry_ and immediately concluding that she pitied him, that she was sorry she could never feel for him what he felt for her.

The rest of the entry was full of medical jargon that he'd heard enough of when he was in the hospital, so he skimmed through to make sure he didn't miss anything important and then moved onto the next. And the next. And the next.

 

> ** **

Fitz's eyebrows rose at that, and his heart started beating faster in his chest. It wasn't that he didn't think he was important to Jemma, it was just... they never really ever _said_ it. Not in so many words. Telling her he thought of her as more than a friend had been the hardest thing he'd ever done, and he knew that her telling him that maybe there _was_ something to discuss between them had been almost as impossible for her.

He continued reading, even though the descriptions of his injury brought back floods of horrid memories.

 

> ** **

Grimacing as he read about how awful he'd been back then, his heart went out to her. She'd been trying to be his best friend, but he'd been so caught up in brain damage and unrequited love and, yes, _anger_ and _frustration_ that he hadn't been able to see it.

Was it any wonder she'd run away to Hydra? They'd have been practically _guaranteed_ to treat her better.

 

> ** **

That disastrous dinner out had been a dry run for a _date_? Fitz's eyebrows rose so high he was surprised they didn't leave his face entirely. That was nothing short of a _revelation_. Well, if he'd bloody well _known_ it was an assessment of his romantic suitability, he wouldn't have been such a righteous _bastard,_ now would he have?

He heaved a sigh and settled back on the pillows he'd risen from in his indignation. He remembered what he'd been like back then. He would have still been a righteous bastard to her, he'd have just expected a kiss at the end of the night is all.

How on _earth_ had she managed to put up with him for as long as she had? Every entry he read was full of her guilt and self-blame, almost to the point of flagellation, but with each entry he read, he remembered his own thoughts and feelings at the time and Jemma couldn't have been further off.

He hadn't _hated_ her. He could never hate her, not in a million years. He'd loved her and that love had been hopeless and the bitterness of it hadn't merely bled into their relationship, it had drowned it. Just like Ward had drowned the two of them in the ocean.

 

> It was too much, all of this. The memories it was bringing back, the misunderstandings that were clear to him now. He felt his heart breaking for Jemma... and for himself. She kept saying over and over again how she was _confused_ how she didn't know how she felt about him, and yet...

 

> He might be reading too much into this, but that seemed like more than just friendship to him. Even _best_ friendship.

He was overwhelmed with the need to see her, to speak to her, to _hold_ her and tell her they'd both got it wrong back then. He wanted her to know that he'd do everything in his power to make sure that it went _right_ , here and now.

Taking out his phone, he typed out a rapid message and hoped for the best.


	37. Jemma as Fitz

Jemma sat cross legged on her bed with her laptop in front of her. She was attempting to analyze the latest scanner data from the monolith, but she kept looking at the clock and wondering how far Fitz had got in her journals.

It had been over an hour now, and if she went by his usual reading speed, he was probably at around the point that she was leaving for Hydra.

She desperately hoped that he'd finally, truly believe that she didn't leave _because of_ him. She left _for_ him.

Biting her lip, she scratched the five o'clock shadow on her cheek and hoped he'd also pick up on how she'd been trying to _help_ him communicate rather than hinder him.

When she'd started gathering journal entries for him to read, she'd focused on the ones to do with his difficulties with speech and how she'd tried to mitigate them. But then she'd added in a few more for context. And a few more after that to explain why she'd left. And soon, she was giving him the entire time from when she'd left the hyperbaric chamber to when they'd finally started mending their friendship again.

She regretted giving him some of the entries from her time at Hydra. Fitz didn't need to know just how badly her isolation had affected her. She'd survived it, and that was enough, really. She certainly didn't want him to feel guilty over it. It wasn't his fault any more than the rest of it.

Giving up on work, she pushed her laptop aside and went into the bathroom to wash the makeup off her face.

She'd have to skip the eyeliner and mascara tomorrow. They made Fitz's eyes even more distracting than usual.

Tossing a cheerio into the toilet, she lifted the seat and tried to aim for it as she stood. She had moderately more success than she'd had without it, so she took it as a useful tip and made a mental note to thank Mack for the idea. Not that she wanted to pee standing up for the rest of her life, but for the period of time that she'd be in Fitz's body, she supposed it was a useful enough skill to develop.

She sighed as she shook off the last few drops and put herself away again. As she washed her hands, she hoped once more that they'd be able to switch back sooner rather than later.

Padding her way back into her bedroom, she unzipped the duffel of clothes that Fitz had packed for her and pulled out a pair of pajamas. She stood for a moment trying to decide whether or not to unpack, but was too restless to come to any conclusions. Instead, she threw the night clothes onto her mattress and started undoing the buttons of her shirt.

She was just pulling the pajama bottoms up her legs when her phone buzzed on her bedside table. She had a text. It was probably Daisy, considering the hour, and she briefly considered ignoring it and pretending she was already asleep, but then she realized it could be an alert from Bobbi's hospital room and she groaned as she moved to answer it.

It was neither of them, however. It was Fitz. And he needed a hug.

* * *

Jemma paused outside of Fitz's door, taking a deep breath and swallowing hard. There was a reason why she'd asked him to read the whole thing through before talking to her. But at the same time, she couldn't very well leave him in such a state if it were possible to offer him some comfort.

She knew too well what that felt like.

Taking one more moment to attempt to prepare herself, she finally set her mouth in a firm line and knocked.

The door swung open immediately.

"Jemma!" Fitz burst out, exploding with her name like he'd been keeping it in too long. He grabbed her hand and pulled her into his room, swinging the door shut behind her. "I'm _so_ sorry!" he apologized. Then he pulled her into a bear hug.

Since she was now several inches taller than him, it wasn't as effective as it usually was, but it felt nice all the same.

"S'ok," she murmured, sliding her hand down his hair. He'd already brushed it. She felt strangely disappointed that she wouldn't be able to do it for him, even though she'd expected not to see him til the morning

"No, it's not!" Fitz insisted, not yet letting her go. If anything, he was gripping her tighter. "Jemma!" he said, and his voice cracked with emotion. "I _never_ hated you! I-" he hiccuped, and she could tell that he was crying.

"Fitz," she said softly, trying her hardest not to stutter. She leaned back a bit and lifted his chin up with her hand. Smiling down at him, she kissed his forehead. "Shh. I know."

And she _did_. Now. It had taken a lot of months and a lot of misunderstandings and a lot of tears from both of them, but they'd managed to clear at least that much up. They'd never hated each other. They'd just... gotten in their own way.

She didn't blame Fitz for the way he'd reacted when he'd woken up from his coma. She didn't even blame him for how he'd treated her when she came back from Hydra. All of it was perfectly understandable and more than a little bit deserved, in her opinion.

"No," Fitz shook his head firmly. "You don't. Jemma, I-" He swallowed hard and sniffled again and released his hold on her to wipe the tears from his cheeks. Lifting his head up to meet her eyes, he pushed his shoulders back confidently. "I love you, Jemma," he said, his voice clear and unwavering. "I think I always have."


	38. Hunter

Hunter jerked awake out of a troubled sleep, his legs flying off of the soft surface they'd been propped up on and his head whipping around to look for the source of the noise. 

He relaxed somewhat when he realized he was still on the base... until the sound that had woken him up turned out to be Bobbi.

"Hey," he said, not quite looking at her as he tried to casually sit up straight. 

"Hey, yourself," Bobbi answered. 

He risked a glance at her face when she didn't immediately send him from the room. She was giving him that sad, defeated look that didn't bode well for him. 

"How're ya feeling?" he asked. If he pretended everything was normal between them, maybe it would be?

"What are you doing here?" she asked instead of answering him. God, she sounded tired. 

So much for pretending everything was normal. 

"Just visiting," he shrugged. At night. When she was asleep and no one else was about. 

She raised an eyebrow at him and after the number of years they'd been married and divorced, she didn't need to say a word. 

"Saying it's over doesn't mean it's over," he said simply.

It would never be over with them. He'd tried.  _God knows_ he'd tried, but there was no one else in the world for him but her. And whether she liked it or not, there was no one else out there for her but him. They were stuck together. Thick and thin, better or worse, they were  _it_. That's all there was to it. 

"Hunter-" she started with a sigh and a groan. 

"No, Bob," he said, shaking his head firmly and taking her hand in his. "We can argue much as you like when you're better, but you might as well just face facts."

He smiled sadly, wishing they could just lie on a beach together in Cabo or Jamaica or somewhere on the Riviera. He still owed her a proper honeymoon. Somehow, he'd thought there'd always be time. 

And then suddenly there almost wasn't.

"You're stuck with me," he said, squeezing her fingers gently. "And I'm stuck with you, and all of our fighting against it and against each other isn't going to change that fact."

He actually got a ghost of a smile with that one. Miracles  _do_ happen. 

"I say we just lean into it," he continued in a more comfortable, sarcastic tone. Earnestness wasn't really his forte. "I mean, you may be a demonic hell-beast," he grinned at her and brushed her hair off her face. "But you're  _my_  demonic hell-beast, right?"

Bobbi laughed briefly, and it ended in a groan. "Stop it," she complained, still smiling slightly. "Laughing  _hurts_."

"Look, Bob," he said more seriously, threading his fingers in between hers and then covering them with his other hand. He looked down at them rather than into her eyes. "I've tried not loving you. Didn't stick. I can't help it."

She covered his hand with hers, and when he looked up, she was looking at him with that expression on her face that meant she was trying to read him. Instead of throwing up his walls like he usually would, he let her see. 

"You're an idiot, you know that?" she said fondly. 

"So," Hunter prodded, "Is that a 'No' then?" He didn't think it was, but he wanted these things stated for the record.

He'd get Daisy to pull the surveillance feed if he had to.

"No to what?" Bobbi asked. She didn't look at all confused. She just wanted it all on the record, too. 

He wasn't the only one who knew how to bribe Daisy, after all. 

"To you and me making a go of things again?" he asked. He tried to keep it light, but he couldn't help holding his breath. 

Bobbi looked at him. She looked at him long and hard and it took every ounce of will he had in him not to squirm.

She kept at it for what felt like a year but was probably less than a minute, and then she said, carefully, "It's not a 'No'."

Hunter turned his head slightly to give her a bit of well-earned side-eye. "But it's not a 'Yes'?" he clarified. 

"How about we start with, 'We'll see'?" Bobbi countered. 

Hunter measured her up for a moment, taking in the cuts and bruises and tubes and needles and the dark circles under her eyes. He hadn't been planning to have this conversation til she was feeling better, anyway, so really...

"I'll take it," he agreed. 

Giving her hand one more gentle squeeze, he let it go and relaxed back into the visitor's chair. He propped his feet back up on the side of her bed and put his hands behind his head. 

"In other news," he said, purposefully changing the subject. "FitzSimmons."

He grinned broadly as Bobbi's face lit up. If there was one thing he knew would guarantee a lift in her spirits, it was news about FitzSimmons hooking up. 


	39. May

May sat on her chaise longue with a white beach cover up over her red bikini. She had a small smile on her face as she watched Andrew play volleyball with a bunch of college kids. He was doing his best to keep up, but he wasn't as young as he used to be.

Then again, neither was she.

Once upon a time, she'd been a bright-eyed S.H.I.E.L.D. agent looking to save the world. She'd been funny and sarcastic and totally in love with her husband. They'd been trying to have a baby and if they couldn't do it on their own, they were going to adopt. They had so much love and happiness to share. Life was perfect.

Looking at Andrew now, laughing at his own struggles to run and jump with a bunch of twenty-year-olds, she had a hard time believing how wrong it had all gone. They'd lost so much time together, so many chances for happiness, and all because of an accident of fate putting her in the wrong place at the wrong time.

If she'd let him help her instead of shutting him out, would they have managed to stay together?

Would they still have been happy, even without the children they both so desperately wanted?

She studied him as he loped, panting and smiling, back to where she was sitting and threw himself down on a towel.

Did she really deserve a second chance at a happy ending?

"I was trying to go easy on them," Andrew said, nodding at the kids he'd been playing with. "Don't want them to feel bad about getting beat by an old man."

May smirked, but otherwise didn't comment. She knew Andrew didn't believe a word he was saying, and she knew that he knew that she knew that. Why say what they both already understood?

"Don't give me that look," he teased, tugging on her cover up. "You know _exactly_ how it is to be surrounded by young people."

She raised an eloquent brow and pinned him with a look. "Generally speak, _I_ don't go easy on them," she pointed out.

Andrew threw his head back and laughed. "You've got that right," he agreed. Sobering up, he moved to the chair beside her, sitting sideways on it with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clasped between them. "You looked like you were doing some serious thinking," he observed. "I could tell all the way from over there," he pointed to where the volleyball game had descended into what looked like a tickle war. It looked like he'd gotten out just in time.

May looked back at the ocean, slipping her sunglasses off of her head and over her eyes. She leaned back in her chair, lowering the back so she could lie down.

"If you didn't want to talk about it, you just had to say," Andrew pointed out, shifting to lie down on his own chaise beside her. He waved over one of the resort's waiters and ordered them both mimosas.

May smiled another ghost of a smile. That was the thing about Andrew. He knew when to push and he knew when to wait.

And she knew that he knew so she wasn't going to play that game.

Relaxing as much as she ever did, she drank her mimosa and looked at the ocean and tried not to look at the two little girls playing in the sand just off to her left and how they'd be about her own daughter's age right now if life had turned out differently.

Motherhood hadn't been in the cards for her, and she'd sucked it up and moved on. For the most part. She had her work, and that focused her.

Thinking of work reminded her of Coulson's phone call. FitzSimmons were in trouble, and she was in Hawaii. That didn't sit right with her. They were her people. She shouldn't be abandoning them like this.

Her jaw set as she thought about all that those two had been through already, and now to have this latest roadblock put in front of them? They'd been struggling so much already. They deserved a moment's happiness before it all went to hell again.

They'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

She looked over at Andrew, reading some schlock thriller and sipping his mimosa and looking perfectly happy to be sitting there with her on a beach. She hated herself for doing it, but she was going to drive him away again.

Taking off her glasses, she sat up and looked at him seriously. "We have to go back," she said simply.

Andrew closed his book and slipped it back into the tote bag he'd gotten it from. Putting down his drink, he picked up the bag and stood. "I was wondering when you were going to say that," he said.

And then he held out his hand to help her up.


	40. Jemma as Fitz

Jemma couldn't wait to get back into her own body. She'd been impatient and annoyed before, but now she was downright desperate.

Fitz telling her he loved her had opened the floodgates. Her own admission had been stuttered out and far from perfect, but he didn't seem to mind. He didn't even seem to _notice_ how difficult it had been to make her mouth form the words, he was so overjoyed just to hear them.

"Love you," he murmured again, this time against her lips.

"Mmm too," she mumbled back, hands buried in the long, thick hair that used to be hers. She was holding it back more to keep it from tickling her face than because she needed to guide Fitz anywhere. They were really getting very good at this kissing thing.

The rest of it, though...

She frowned and shifted around on the bed underneath Fitz. They hadn't made out quite like this before, and they were fitting together all wrong. Jemma had her legs parted so that Fitz could settle between them, and while that did put a nice pressure against her hard cock, it was hardly what she was looking for.

It probably wasn't doing much for Fitz, either.

"C-c-can w-we-?" she asked, moving her hands down to what used to be her own hips and lifting Fitz up a bit.

"Hmm?" Fitz asked, opening his eyes and looking at what she was doing. "Sure," he said, not quite certain what she was suggesting. "What do you want me to-? Like this? Oh!"

Jemma blushed a bit as she managed to shift them around so that Fitz was straddling her. She couldn't help lifting her hips as he settled back down on her, and they both moaned.

"Alr-right?" she asked with a slight gasp. It all felt so much better now. Her hard cock pressed up between Fitz's legs, and even through all of the layers of their clothing, she could feel how hot his pussy was. Her blush darkened. She hadn't realized that was possible. Statements from any number of past boyfriends were starting to make more sense to her.

Fitz nodded and swallowed hard. "Just kissing, though, right?" he asked nervously with a small frown on his face.

Jemma nodded her agreement. Neither one of them really knew what the rules were in a situation like this, but they had agreed that sex was complicated enough in their relationship without trying to do it in each others' bodies.

Still, she had a whole new appreciation for premature ejaculators. She hoped she could hold out, though. If only because she was positive that Fitz would be embarrassed if his body came just from kissing. Even if she tried to explain that it was her own arousal that did it, not some perceived dysfunction of his 'equipment.'

* * *

Jemma curled herself behind Fitz as he continued reading her journal entries. She didn't read them with him, except when he asked her a question here or there, she just held him while he did. 

When he got to the bad part, the part that she'd almost decided against showing him, he turned to her with shining eyes and held her tight.

"Oh, _Jemma_ ," he whispered, and she felt the tears wet her cheeks. "I'm so sorry! I wish I'd never driven you away!"

"Shh," she sniffled, blinking back the tears as she hugged him back. "N-no harm d-d-done," she said with a tight smile.

Fitz cupped her cheek in his hand, and they both winced a bit at the sandpapery sound it made.

"Very nearly a _lot_ of harm done," Fitz said seriously, looking into her eyes.

She kissed him. Eyes closed and lips pressed hard against his, she allowed the tears to fall this time.

"I'm so glad you came back to me," he whispered, pressing his forehead against hers.

"I'm s-so s-s-s-orry I l-left," she whispered back.

"I understand why you did now," he smiled, booping their noses together. "And you'll never have to again."

"N-not w-without you," she agreed.

Fitz closed up his laptop and put it on the floor, and they curled up together under the blankets to fall asleep. They were talking now, talking about things that _mattered_ , and it was all going to be alright.


	41. Daisy

Daisy looked up from her laptop and grinned. FitzSimmons were walking into the lab, holding hands and looking so happy she could spit.

"Hey guys," she greeted them. Her smile was so broad her cheeks hurt. "Have a good night?" There was more than a little bit of innuendo painting onto that question.

It was funny watching them blush squirm that. She hadn't actually _said_   'how's the sex' but she was super glad that they'd understood her subtext.

They were always good like that.

"Great, thanks."

She breathed out a chuckle and shook her head. It would never not be weird to hear a Scottish accent coming out of Jemma's face.

"I couldn't help noticing that Jemma wasn't in her room when I knocked this morning..." she continued in a leading tone. "Did you happen to wake up _extra_ early this morning, Jemma?"

Jemma pulled her cardigan sleeves down over her hands and shrugged.

"Nah," Fitz said, shaking his head and making his ponytail swing. "We overslept a bit, actually." The look he gave her was challenging and, with the added impact of Jemma's eyebrows, also a little intimidating.

Daisy decided that she'd let it drop.

For now.

"So I've been going over your data," she said, waving them over. "And I see what you mean about that electromagnetic field."

Fitz leaned over one of her shoulders and Jemma leaned over the other as she pointed to a graph on her screen.

"Bad news is? Your sensors can't do shit about it."

They exchanged unhappy looks with each other.

"Th-that explains w-why..."

"Why our readings are so useless. What about the video feed? Were you able to-"

"-get s-something?"

Daisy felt a warm glow seep through her chest. They were FitzSimmonsing.

"I'm still working on cleaning it up," she apologized. "I've got the two of you talking, then static, then the monolith sucking you in, more static, and then you two locking it back up." She pointed out each aspect as the video played. "It's going to take a couple of days for me to render anything useful out of that static, but I've got my baby working on it."

She patted her laptop lovingly, even as Jemma laughed.

"Hey, _you_ call the electron microscope baby," she said defensively.

Fitz snorted at that one.

"And _you_ call half the machines on the base baby when they're acting up."

That shut him up.

"Anyway, I don't know that you're going to get anywhere useful without those samples. How's it going with Mack?"

Jemma shrugged and winced a bit. "P-planning is..." She looked over at Fitz.

"It's pretty involved. Multi-step processes for both safety and extraction with computer simulations running dozens of possible scenarios. Until they all come up green, we're still on hold."

Jemma smiled gratefully and nodded, curling one hand over her ear even though she still didn't have any hair to push back.

Fitz reached across Daisy to point at the video and Daisy wrinkled her nose a bit. It might be Fitz in Jemma's body, but did he have to wear dude deodorant? It just smelled weird with Jemma's fruity shampoo.

"Can you slow that down?" he asked. "Run it frame by frame, right up to the static?"

Daisy nodded, squinting at the screen. "What are you seeing?" she asked.

"I'm _remembering_ ," Fitz said, peering closely.

Jemma leaned in too, and Daisy got a scent of lavender from her. Definitely not that body's usual scent.

She couldn't wait til they switched back. All of this weirdness was too much for her brain when she'd only had one coffee so far.

"What are you doing?" she asked quietly, zooming in on the screen to where Fitz's hands were moving.

Jemma gasped behind her. "The phone!"

As soon as Jemma said it, Daisy saw it. Right before the static burst, Fitz had pulled his cell phone out of his back pocket.

All three of them froze for a second. Then they all burst into motion.

They needed to see what a cell signal did to that god damn rock.


	42. Andrew

Andrew walked through the base behind is ex-wife, wearing his Hawaiian print shirt, linen shorts, and sandals. Just because Melinda had called their vacation short didn't mean he had to go back to work.

He did miss seeing her in the bikini, though. Her jumpsuit was professional, but not nearly as sexy.

"Phil," he said, holding out a hand.

"Andrew," Coulson nodded. "I'm really sorry about this, but this situation is-"

Andrew held up his hand and smiled in understanding. "Melinda explained."

Coulson looked at her with a tight but appreciative smile. "Thanks."

Melinda stood at ease in front of Phil's desk, and Andrew watched that poker face he hated settle over her features. He understood how important this all was to her. He just wished she didn't need to lose herself in order to do her job.

"How are Fitz and Simmons?" she asked, clasping her hands behind her back. Her feet were shoulder width apart. Her knees were slightly bent and ready to help her spring into action.

"Still switched." Coulson shook his head and then smiled ironically. "Who knew Freaky Friday'd be the science fiction to turn into science fact?" Turning to Andrew, he said, "They're in the lab with Daisy. Think you could check in on them? Make sure they're doing alright with..." He gestured vaguely around his head. "The whole thing?"

Andrew nodded and pushed himself off of the table he'd been leaning against.

"Come find me later?" he asked Melinda. He pressed his hand lightly against the small of her back and she gave him a tiny smile when she nodded.

The vacation might be over, but the reconciliation wasn't.

* * *

He saw Fitz and Jemma before he arrived at the lab. They were with Daisy, all there of them trying to get past Mack. 

"-let us test the-"

"-ignal might be the cause of-"

"-t-t-try?"

"No way," Mack said firmly, hands held up both in defense and to push them back if need be.

"What's going on?" Andrew asked. They all turned to look at him.

"Dr. Garner," Mack said with some relief. "Maybe _you_ can convince them all that they're nuts."

Andrew chuckled. "That's not the technical term for it, but I'll see what I can do. What is that you three want to do that's so 'nuts'?"

The three of them exchanged glances before finally Jemma was pushed forward as spokesman.

Except she wasn't Jemma, Andrew reminded himself. He was Fitz.

"It's a bit complicated," Fitz began, clearly trying to gear himself up.

Andrew nodded and smiled wryly. "Melinda filled me on your situation. Fitz, right?"

He visibly relaxed. "Yes," he said with a wave of relief that was almost palpable. "Simmons and I have switched bodies somehow because of the Monolith, and Daisy just discovered that it was triggered by my cell phone. We all," he gestured to indicate the three of them. "Want to go back into the Monolith room and, _staying well back from it_ ," he looked pointedly back over his shoulder at Mack before turning to speak to Andrew once more. "We want to see if the cell signal is what caused the morphological change."

Andrew nodded thoughtfully through the explanation, watching the faces of everyone involved. Fitz and Simmons of course looked hopeful. Daisy was curious and possibly looking for a fight. Mack looked like a mother hen whose chicks all want to dive into a pot of boiling water.

"I see the door's taped shut," Andrew said conversationally, pointing to the caution tape in an X across the doorway. "I'm guessing that's because Phil doesn't want anyone else getting all mixed up like you two already are."

They nodded, a bit shamefaced.

"And Mack, am I right in thinking that you've got some safety protocols that you want followed before anyone goes in there again?"

"That's right," Mack agreed, nodding firmly. "One person at a time. On a tether. Never less than 3m out from the monolith. And that's just the basics."

Andrew turned to Daisy. "Were the three of you going to follow those protocols?"

She mumbled something he couldn't hear, crossing her arms over her chest and looking away.

"What was that?" he chided gently.

She heaved a sigh and looked at him. "No," she admitted glumly.

"Alright then. How about we all go into the lounge," he pointed back down the hallway behind him. "And sit down and work out what to do next. Alright?" He grinned and spread his hands wide in open invitation. "I'll make virgin pina coladas. It'll be great!"

Turning around, he lead the now subdued group away from danger and towards preparation.

How did these people manage to survive as long as they had if this was how they went about things?


	43. Mack

Mack crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. "I don't like it."

May crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head slightly. One eyebrow lifted up as if to say, "Do I look like I care?" What she _actually_ said was, "You don't have to."

"That rock is _my_ responsibility," Mack said. His voice rose slightly as he jabbed an angry finger at the monolith. "And so is everything that happened when it wasn't locked up _tight_."

May's expression softened slightly. Then she caught herself and it hardened again. "You heard Coulson."

Mack nodded. His jaw clenched and unclenched as his biceps twitched in his arms. "I did," he agreed shortly.

It wasn't the first time Coulson had given him an order that pissed him right off. Knowing that it wouldn't be the last didn't make it any better. No matter what Andrew might say, Mack knew what had happened. There was no way he was letting it happen again.

He struggled with his temper for another minute while May watched. He hated it when she did that. Standing there with that impassive expression on her face and no movement at all. She could be a statue. They'd talked before about how she turned her emotions into fuel for action, but it just wasn't something he could do. He needed to _feel_ them, not turn them into something else. Being a robot never saved anyone, but caring about people _did_.

Finally, he breathed out and nodded his defeat.

"We do it _my_ way," he said, shaking a warning finger at her.

The nice thing about May was that at least her smiles were small enough you could pretend you didn't see them.

He had a list of protocols he wanted followed, and they went through them one by one.

  1. The monolith room was already under 24-hour surveillance, but he wanted the number of cameras and sensors trained on it doubled.
  2. All non-essential personnel needed to evacuate the wing in case the monolith continued to expand or mobilize past the confines of the room. In conjunction with this, the wing would have to be sealed off from the rest of the base. All hands needed to be prepared to abandon the base.
  3. Testing the cell phone theory would happen with the monolith case still closed and locked. The cell phone would be sent into the room already dialing. No humans would enter until there was an all clear.



"And if the phone really _does_ trigger it?" May asked.

Mack had known her long enough now that he knew that her expressionless face was a mask covering up her need for action.

"I heard Coulson," he answered shortly. "But I still think it's a stupid risk."

"It's _my_ risk."

"Doesn't mean it's not stupid."

* * *

Mack, May, and Piper hovered well back from the monolith room, watching the stone on a bank of monitors. They had it surveilled from every angle. 

Mack had already gone in. He'd been suited up and on a tether, ready for immediate extraction if the monolith started moving. After setting up the additional cameras and sensors, he'd cautiously approached the glass cage they'd built around it and carefully checked all three layers of lockdown on it.

Even he couldn't think of any precaution they weren't taking.

"Ready?" he said, turning to Piper.

She pressed her lips together in determination and nodded. After punching her own number into the burner phone's keypad, she checked to make sure that it was firmly attached to the rig they'd built to send it into the monolith on its own. Once she was sure it was secured, she looked up at Mack. "On your mark, sir."

Mack shook his head slowly. This was a dumb risk to take, but he didn't know how else to get FitzSimmons back to normal. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Finally, he put his hands on his hips and nodded.

"Do it."

Piper hit dial on the phone and then sent the rig into the room.

They didn't even have time to hold their breath. The monitors were already filling with static and there was a pounding noise coming from the room. Piper was frozen, crouched outside of the doorway, eyes wide and staring.

Mack and May bolted the few steps necessary to look in through the door and they froze too.

The monolith had transformed into an inky black tar that was struggling to break free of its cage. It exploded out onto all surfaces at once, then coalesced again before it started throwing its full weight at the wall closest to the phone. The cage, which they'd secured so strongly the Hulk himself would be hard-pressed to move it, started to shift on its pedestal.

"Holy-" Piper whispered, terrified.

That broke Mack free of the spell.

"Hang up!" he shouted.

Piper still stared.

Mack reached out and grabbed her phone from her hand and swiped left, declining the incoming call. They'd already disabled her voicemail, so the burner phone hung up.

They watched as the monolith immediately reformed, looking as permanently fixed as part of Stone Henge.

Piper finally stood up, looking rattled. "I'm sorry, sir. I just-"

"It's fine, Piper," Mack said. He was still looking at the monolith, his brow creased with worry. "I froze too."

May's jaw set as she turned away from the rock to look at Mack.

"Call Coulson," she said firmly. "I'm going in."


	44. Fitz as Jemma

"You're awfully quiet."

Fitz looked up as Dr. Garner came over and sat next to him on the sofa. Jemma and Daisy were laughing over their mocktails in the kitchen, but he'd excused himself to the lounge. He'd _said_ he wanted to watch some telly while they waited for dinner to be ready, but he was just sat there staring unseeing at the screen.

"Televisions don't usually talk back, so I tend not to chat to them much." It was a snarky response, but there wasn't any heat behind it. Besides, Andrew knew about his history of speaking to someone who wasn't actually there. He wouldn't find the joke that funny anyway.

"Glad to hear it," Andrew said with the friendly smile. "I _do_ talk back, but just conversationally. My mother taught me not to sass people." The tone was free from rebuke, but Fitz got the message anyway. Andrew could see right through him, so he shouldn't bother trying to play games. 

Heaving a sigh, Fitz pulled a throw pillow onto his lap and started fidgeting with the zipper on the side of it.

"I want to get back into my own body," he said. Looking over at the kitchen, he could see it there talking with Daisy, but it was Jemma inside of it rather than him.

"But?" Andrew asked.

Fitz sighed again and looked back at the pillow. He tugged the zipper open and inch and then closed it again. Open. Closed. Open. Closed.

"What if it's not the same after we switch back?" he muttered. He didn't even want to _ask_ it, but the question was taking up all the space in his brain right now.

He and Jemma were in a good place, emotionally. They'd talked out a lot of the problems they hadn't addressed between them. They'd cleared up miscommunications. They'd started _dating_ for crying out loud! And all of that had happened after they'd switched.

He wondered if she'd ever have shown him her journals if she hadn't been trying to explain how their needs with his aphasia were so different. Would he ever have found out what _she'd_ been thinking during his recovery if she hadn't needed to recover herself?

Would he ever have figured out that he loved her? Would she have said that she loved him?

"You and Jemma?" Andrew asked, looking into the kitchen. "You're worried you'll fall back into old habits?"

Fitz shrugged. He pulled the zipper open, then pulled it closed. Open. Closed.

"She _needs_ me now," he said, hating himself for thinking this way. "But after we switch back she won't anymore."

She'd be able to think and speak just fine again, and he'd be back to being damaged goods. Would she still want him now that she knew just how broken his brain really was?

"You really think she doesn't need you?" Andrew asked. He looked genuinely surprised, at least as far as Fitz could tell. "Because I couldn't disagree more."

"Really?" Was it horrible that the idea gave him hope?

"I can't reveal anything that was said to me during a session," Andrew said seriously. "But if you're really worried about that, I think you should talk to her. Tell her how you feel. And when she tells you why she needs you, _listen_ to her. She means it. She's not just trying to make you feel better."

Fitz blushed. Was he really that easy to understand?

"I don't even know how that conversation would start," he said instead. He tugged on the zipper again, but looked at Andrew out of the corner of his eye. If anyone would know how to talk about something like that, it would be him.

"I don't know," Andrew smiled. "I think your question to me a pretty good way to do it." When Fitz frowned, trying to remember, Andrew gave him the line. "What if it's not the same after you switch back?"

Fitz blew out a nervous breath. "Just come out with it?" he asked, half-skeptical, half-scared.

"Just come out with it," Andrew confirmed. He patted Fitz's knee as he stood up. "And if the two of you need any help at all with the conversation, come and find me. I won't be going anywhere for a little while."

Fitz smiled at that. "How as your vacation?" he asked. He still couldn't believe that Andrew and May had ever been married. They seemed so... different. "Sorry you had to cut it short on our behalf."

Andrew waved him off and laughed. "Don't worry," he said reassuringly. "I'll get her back."

Fitz couldn't help noticing that he hadn't said "... to Hawaii."


	45. Koenig

Billy hustled quickly down the hallways in Director Coulson's wake, dodging around obstacles and trying not to pant too loudly. His lanyard flapped against his face as he skidded around a corner and he slapped it away in annoyance.

Agent May was going to go up against the monolith and the Director was _not_ happy about it.

The Director had put the room on lockdown and Agent May was even _less_ happy about _that_.

When Coulson finally pulled up short in front of May, Billy jogged in behind him and then bent over, hands on his knees, catching his breath. He held his ever-present tablet in one hand and used the other to press his tie (and lanyard) out of the way. The swinging was increasing his feeling of nausea.

"You can't go in there," Coulson said firmly, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Try and stop me," May retorted. She was strapping herself into some sort of harness and ignoring them completely.

"Sto-!" Billy panted. He was still bent over, but he threw out one hand and waved it in May's general direction. "Stop! Stop." He swallowed hard and managed (with a loud groan) to return to an upright position. Wincing, he rubbed the small of his back and leaned backwards, trying to work the kinks out. After a few more limbering stretches, he slowed to a halt as he noticed May looking at him.

She raised her eyebrow expectantly.

"We've got a better plan," Coulson said.

Billy nodded and flipped open his tablet. There was a clock counting down with less than twenty minutes left.

"When this hits zero, we'll be ready to go."

"What happens when that hits zero?" Mack asked. His brows were knit with worry, and he glanced behind him at the door to the monolith room.

"Sam gets here."

Mack and May exchanged confused looks.

"Sam?" Mack prompted.

"Billy's brother," Coulson reminded them. "They're... twins. Sort of." Waving off the larger explantion, he continued to explain. "They're volunteering to get switched and see if the monolith switches them back."

Billy preened a bit at the way the senior agents looked at him with a bit more respect.

"You'd do that?" May asked.

"Of course I would!" Billy answered, slightly offended. "I'm as much a part of this team as you are."

Her impassive stare was impossible to read, even for Billy. Oh, to have his lie detector machine back again.

"What if you _don't_ switch back?" Mack asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Then Sam gets to be the cute one," Billy said dismissively. "For once." He snorted and laughed, elbowing Coulson with a knowing look.

Coulson chuckled obligingly. He was always good for that, especially with the dad jokes. "Billy and Sam know the risks, and they're willing to go ahead anyway. And you have to admit, it would be less of a shock for them than it would be for you and me," he said, waggling a finger between himself and Agent May.

Billy very obviously pretended to be _really interested_ in his tablet. May's expression wasn't one he wanted to admit having seen. By the time he'd looked back up again, though, her eyes were less narrowed and her mouth was almost... smiling?

"I'm sure Andrew would appreciate that, too," she said dryly.

It was all Billy could do not to say, "Oh snap."

"If you're _sure_ about this..." Mack said one more time.

"Tie me up, big guy," Billy said gruffly.

When everyone stared at him, he pointed at May's harness. "You _are_ going to keep me on a tether, right? That's still part of the plan?"

* * *

Sam arrived bang on schedule, just as the timer on Billy's tablet started chirping. 

"You just _had_ to time me, didn't you?" he said, shaking his head in disgust. "A little _trust_ would be nice, brother."

"I'm trusting you enough to switch bodies with you, _brother_ ," Billy retorted. "Isn't that enough?"

Their bickering continued throughout the process of Sam suiting up, and for a change no one told them to cut it out. Billy knew it was because no one wanted to yell at them when they might not come back from this.

There were solemn handshakes all around before they lined up next to each other at the door to the room. Billy held up his cell phone and looked at his brother.

"Ready?" he asked, his face a mask of determination.

"You bet your ass," Sam nodded, an identical expression on his identical face.

Walking slowly, they entered the room as Mack and Piper played out the rope of the tether behind them. They paused right in front of the monolith cage and then looked back at Coulson. His face was tight, lips pursed together, and his arms were crossed over his chest, hands gripping his biceps. He stared at them for a moment, breathing deeply, then he nodded, once.

Sam looked at Billy and unlocked the cage.

Billy hit dial on his phone.

He was overwhelmed by a strange feeling, almost like weightlessness and then a sharp tug, like someone had a hook in his bellybutton and pulled on it. His mind twisted in circles like it was sliding down a corkscrew, and he felt what used to be his cheeks puff up with the need to vomit. Except his body wasn't a body in that moment, it was just a memory of what a body used to feel like. He was part of the viscous liquid rock that had pulled him in, and he could feel it seeping through him.

He had no sooner formed that thought than the feeling was gone. The molten monolith drew itself back into its case and stood as a solid pillar again.

Billy blinked and looked at his brother standing next to him. "Aw man, now _you're_ the cute one," he moaned in disappointment.

Sam smirked and looked back at the group waiting for their report. "We're switched!" he called out.

Billy just hoped they could switch back.


	46. Jemma as Fitz

Jemma lay on her bed with her arms wrapped around Fitz and her chin resting on the top of his head. They were watching Netflix on his laptop before bed. Smiling to herself, she felt a flutter of hope that perhaps as soon as tomorrow their positions would be reversed.

Or, more accurately, their bodies would be in exactly this same position but their minds would be in the right skulls again.

Stroking her hand lightly along his arm, she kissed the top of his head. Her mind drifted away from the movie on the screen, and she started thinking about what their future might be now, after all of this.

They'd been through so much, with the pod and Fitz's recovery and her time spent at Hydra. There'd been misunderstandings and miscommunications and walls thrown up between them that had felt insurmountable. But they'd made their way back to being friends. And she'd made her way through how she felt about him. And the truly miraculous thing had been that he'd still felt the same about her.

Even with all of that, though, there were still things they hadn't realized, things they'd hadn't fully understood. This experience had been at times funny or awkward or borderline unbearable, but she'd always appreciate the opportunity it had given her to truly _understand_ what Fitz had gone through for her. That she'd been able to explain what she'd gone through for _him_.

She felt tears prick at her eyes as her heart swelled with feelings. She still didn't really know how to express them at all, but she understood a bit better that Fitz needed her to. Taking her time, she marshalled her thoughts while Fitz watched the film that she'd picked out for them.

"F-Fitz?" she finally said hesitantly.

"Hmm?" He paused the movie and looked up at her.

"W-when w-we switch b-back," she said slowly. "C-can we still s-sleep like this? T-together?"

Fitz swallowed and closed the laptop, setting it aside. "You want to?" he asked.

Jemma felt the flutter of hope in her stomach grow with the way he asked. She nodded her head and smiled.

Fitz rolled onto his side and took her hand in his, looking at their linked fingers as he spoke. "I want that too," he said. "I don't want to go back to... before. I want _this_." He held up their joined hands and looked into her eyes, and they shared a smile.

"I w-want _us_ ," Jemma confirmed. She squeezed his hand and then brought it to her lips to kiss it.

Fitz tried not to wince, but she knew it was hard for him when she showed him affection from his own face. But the struggle on his face continued even after she'd let their hands drop, and she started to worry that there might be something more to it than just the discomfort of their situation.

"You're sure?" Fitz finally asked. "About me, I mean? I'm... enough?"

Jemma's eyes widened and a shocked noise squawked out of the back of her throat.

"You're everything!" she said immediately. The response was so immediate, she didn't even stutter.

Fitz blushed and laughed wryly.

"Really!" Jemma said. She sat up and pulled Fitz up with her. "You're _part_ of me, Fitz. You must know that by now! Without you, I-" The tears came back and she swallowed hard to keep them back. "I c-can't do w-without you ag-gain."

Fitz's expression had melted from wry to surprised to absolute love. "I can't do without you, either," he said. Then he leaned in and kissed her. "And I promise you won't have to."

Jemma pulled him in for another kiss, deeper than the one before, and soon they were sliding back down to lie on her bed, tangled together.

"When we get back to normal," Fitz said nervously, scratching his cheek. "Can we-?"

"We're d- _definitely_ having sex."

They shared an eager look as blushes crept up their faces, and finally they collapsed together in laughter born of relief.

At least she knew what they were going to do next?


	47. Daisy

Daisy ran through the hallways at full steam, occasionally quaking items out of her way and yelling at anyone and everyone to get out of her path.

" _Move it, people! Emergency! Coming through!_ "

Even for a group of people as accustomed to urgency as a base full of SHIELD agents, she was prompting stares.

Skidding to a stop, she pounded on Fitz's door. "Open up! It's me! It's happening!"

There was no answer, and there was no way even _Fitz_ could sleep through the racket she was making.

Rushing over to Jemma's door, she tried again. "Stop fucking and get dressed, it's time to get your bodies back!"

The door opened almost immediately, and they didn't look anywhere near as rumpled as she'd thought they would be by now. They'd been alone in a bedroom for over an hour. What were they waiting for?

Priorities, Daisy. You can give them the talk later.

"The Koenigs tested our theory. It worked. _C'mon_!" Grabbing each one of them by a hand, she started dragging them through the doorway.

Unfortunately, she dragged them both at the same time, and they got momentarily stuck.

"Sorry," she apologized with a sheepish smile. "I might have got a _bit_ carried away."

"A bit?" Fitz asked, rubbing his shoulder where it had hit the door frame. "Jemma's going to have a bruise tomorrow."

"So's Fitz," Jemma said, frowning as she rubbed her bicep. Then she blinked. "Wait, y-you mean-?"

"We're a go for the monolith!" Daisy shouted triumphantly.

For a couple of nerds, they could run _fast_.

They were all panting and sweaty by the time they got to the monolith room. Everyone else was already waiting there for them, except for Bobbi. Hunter was holding up a tablet for her as they facetimed so she could see everything for herself. Fitz waved at her and Jemma smiled and Bobbi waved back. "Good luck!" she said, a tinny voice just barely audible in the brick-lined hallway. "Easy peasy, mate," Hunter grinned reassuringly.

Jemma walked over to the Koenig brothers and pulled them into a hug. "Thank you," she said.

"Maybe save the hug until you're switched back?" Sam asked hopefully.

Billy gave him a dirty look and smacked him. "You're _welcome_ ," he said pointedly.

"Good luck in there, Turbo," Mack said. He offered his fist for a bump and Fitz closed his hand over it and gave it a shake.

"Thanks," he said. "For everything."

May held up two harnesses for them to put on and helped them gear up while Coulson explained what they were about to do. Daisy watched it all with adrenaline pumping through her so hard she was having a tough time not shaking the base apart.

"Stay safe in there, guys," she said when they were finally ready to enter. "I need my FitzSimmons back and sciencing all over the place, okay?"

She pulled them into a hug and they squeezed her tight.

She held her breath as she watched them walk up to the rock that had started it all. They held hands and smiled at each other and if everything went wrong and this was the last time she saw them, at least they were happy and together.

And then Fitz hit dial on his phone and they were enveloped in a rock turned liquid and Daisy watched in horror for the longest three seconds of her life.


	48. Fitz as Fitz

Fitz groaned as the world reconstituted itself around him. He held out a hand to steady himself on the monolith case, and then he let out a whoop of delight. It was _his_ hand he was seeing, not Jemma's. Turning to look at where he'd been standing a moment before, he saw his best friend standing there instead. 

"Oh thank god," he breathed. Letting out a relieved laugh, he pulled her into a hug.

"Fitz?" Jemma asked. Her voice was laced with happy disbelief. "It worked?"

She held up her left hand and stared at it for a moment, and Fitz knew she was probably remembering how useless his own left hand was now since his accident.

Except she didn't look sad at all. She looked happy. "It worked!" she said, louder, so their friends could hear. A cheer went up outside of the door and everyone started crowding in.

" _Wait!_ " Fitz said, holding up a hand. "Everyone turn off your phones!"

There was a loud series of rustling noises as everyone followed his order as quickly as possible. The last thing they needed was for someone to get an incoming call and for all of them to end up in the wrong bodies.

While they turned off their phones, Fitz and Jemma locked up the monolith's cage once more. There was no sense taking chances, after all.

It was only once everything was secure that the hugging was able to commence.

"It's good to have you back," Coulson said, shaking his hand sincerely.

"I never left," Fitz shrugged. He knew what Coulson was talking about, but it didn't really apply. He'd been surrounded by his friends every step of the way and he'd gone through it with the woman he loved. As far as the dangers of the job went, this one didn't even rank.

"- _haven't_ yet?" Daisy was asking Jemma. "What are you waiting for?"

He turned and saw the look Jemma gave her and knew exactly what they were talking about.

Daisy grinned. "But you're not going to wait any _more_ , right?"

Blushing to the roots of his hair, he spun back around, desperate not to overhear any more of that conversation. He found himself face to face with Dr. Garner.

"You two are going to be alright," Andrew smiled, shaking his hand in congratulations.

"Yeah," Fitz agreed. He turned to look at Jemma again and smiled. "We are."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and with a sudden posting of 6 chapters in 2 days I call this fic COMPLETE!
> 
> sorry it took so damn long :)


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